Solar Variability and Planetary Climates

CERN Document Server

Calisesi, Y; Gray, L; Langen, J; Lockwood, M

2007-01-01

Variations in solar activity, as revealed by variations in the number of sunspots, have been observed since ancient times. To what extent changes in the solar output may affect planetary climates, though, remains today more than ever a subject of controversy. In 2000, the SSSI volume on Solar Variability and Climate reviewed the to-date understanding of the physics of solar variability and of the associated climate response. The present volume on Solar Variability and Planetary Climates provides an overview of recent advances in this field, with particular focus at the Earth's middle and lower atmosphere. The book structure mirrors that of the ISSI workshop held in Bern in June 2005, the collection of invited workshop contributions and of complementary introductory papers synthesizing the current understanding in key research areas such as middle atmospheric processes, stratosphere-troposphere dynamical coupling, tropospheric aerosols chemistry, solar storm influences, solar variability physics, and terrestri...

Planetary Sciences, Geodynamics, Impacts, Mass Extinctions, and Evolution: Developments and Interconnections

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Research frontiers in geophysics are being expanded, with development of new fields resulting from technological advances such as the Earth observation satellite network, global positioning system, high pressure-temperature physics, tomographic methods, and big data computing. Planetary missions and enhanced exoplanets detection capabilities, with discovery of a wide range of exoplanets and multiple systems, have renewed attention to models of planetary system formation and planet’s characteristics, Earth’s interior, and geodynamics, highlighting the need to better understand the Earth system, processes, and spatio-temporal scales. Here we review the emerging interconnections resulting from advances in planetary sciences, geodynamics, high pressure-temperature physics, meteorite impacts, and mass extinctions.

The Planetary Data System— Archiving Planetary Data for the use of the Planetary Science Community

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Thomas H.; McLaughlin, Stephanie A.; Grayzeck, Edwin J.; Vilas, Faith; Knopf, William P.; Crichton, Daniel J.

2014-11-01

NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) archives, curates, and distributes digital data from NASA’s planetary missions. PDS provides the planetary science community convenient online access to data from NASA’s missions so that they can continue to mine these rich data sets for new discoveries. The PDS is a federated system consisting of nodes for specific discipline areas ranging from planetary geology to space physics. Our federation includes an engineering node that provides systems engineering support to the entire PDS.In order to adequately capture complete mission data sets containing not only raw and reduced instrument data, but also calibration and documentation and geometry data required to interpret and use these data sets both singly and together (data from multiple instruments, or from multiple missions), PDS personnel work with NASA missions from the initial AO through the end of mission to define, organize, and document the data. This process includes peer-review of data sets by members of the science community to ensure that the data sets are scientifically useful, effectively organized, and well documented. PDS makes the data in PDS easily searchable so that members of the planetary community can both query the archive to find data relevant to specific scientific investigations and easily retrieve the data for analysis. To ensure long-term preservation of data and to make data sets more easily searchable with the new capabilities in Information Technology now available (and as existing technologies become obsolete), the PDS (together with the COSPAR sponsored IPDA) developed and deployed a new data archiving system known as PDS4, released in 2013. The LADEE, MAVEN, OSIRIS REx, InSight, and Mars2020 missions are using PDS4. ESA has adopted PDS4 for the upcoming BepiColumbo mission. The PDS is actively migrating existing data records into PDS4 and developing tools to aid data providers and users. The PDS is also incorporating challenge

Tips and Tools for Teaching Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, N. M.

2011-10-01

The poster will describe handson exercises with demonstrations, clicker questions and discussion to demonstrate how to help students understand planets on a deeper conceptual level. We'll also discuss ways to take the latest discoveries beyond "wow" and turn them into teachable moments. The goal is to give modern strategies for teaching planetary science, emphasizing physical concepts and comparative principles. All will be given digital copies of video clips, demonstration descriptions, clicker questions, web links and powerpoint slidesets on recent planetary science discoveries.

Planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amnuehl', P.R.

1985-01-01

The history of planetary nebulae discovery and their origin and evolution studies is discussed in a popular way. The problem of planetary nebulae central star is considered. The connection between the white-draft star and the planetary nebulae formulation is shown. The experimental data available acknowledge the hypothesis of red giant - planetary nebula nucleus - white-draft star transition process. Masses of planetary nebulae white-draft stars and central stars are distributed practically similarly: the medium mass is close to 0.6Msub(Sun) (Msub(Sun) - is the mass of the Sun)

Engaging Audiences in Planetary Science Through Visualizations

Science.gov (United States)

Shupla, C. B.; Mason, T.; Peticolas, L. M.; Hauck, K.

2017-12-01

One way to share compelling stories is through visuals. The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI), in collaboration with Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) and Space Science Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, has been working with planetary scientists to reach and engage audiences in their research through the use of visualizations. We will share how images and animations have been used in multiple mediums, including the planetarium, Science on a Sphere, the hyperwall, and within apps. Our objectives are to provide a tool that planetary scientists can use to tell their stories, as well as to increase audience awareness of and interest in planetary science. While scientists are involved in the selection of topics and the development of the visuals, LPI and partners seek to increase the planetary science community's awareness of these resources and their ability to incorporate them into their own public engagement efforts. This presentation will share our own resources and efforts, as well as the input received from scientists on how education and public engagement teams can best assist them in developing and using these resources, and disseminating them to both scientists and to informal science education venues.

Planetary nebulae: understanding the physical and chemical evolution of dying stars.

Science.gov (United States)

Weinberger, R; Kerber, F

1997-05-30

Planetary nebulae are one of the few classes of celestial objects that are active in every part of the electromagnetic spectrum. These fluorescing and often dusty expanding gaseous envelopes were recently found to be quite complex in their dynamics and morphology, but refined theoretical models can account for these discoveries. Great progress was also made in understanding the mechanisms that shape the nebulae and the spectra of their central stars. In addition, applications for planetary nebulae have been worked out; for example, they have been used as standard candles for long-range distances and as tracers of the enigmatic dark matter.

Relation between radius and expansion velocity in planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chu, Y.H.; Kwitter, K.B.; Kaler, J.B.

1984-01-01

The expansion velocity-radius (R-V) relation for planetary nebulae is examined using the existing measurements of expansion velocities and recent calculations of radii. It is found that some of the previously alleged R-V relations for PN are not convincingly established. The scatter in the R-V plots may be due largely to stratification of ions in individual nebulae and to heterogeneity in the planetary nebula population. In addition, from new echelle/CCD observations of planetary nebulae, it is found that spatial information is essential in deriving the internal kinematic properties. Future investigations of R-V relations should be pursued separately for groups of planetaries with similar physical properties, and they should employ observations of appropriate low excitation lines in order to measure the expansion velocity at the surface of the nebula. 26 references

Europlanet Research Infrastructure: Planetary Simulation Facilities

Science.gov (United States)

Davies, G. R.; Mason, N. J.; Green, S.; Gómez, F.; Prieto, O.; Helbert, J.; Colangeli, L.; Srama, R.; Grande, M.; Merrison, J.

2008-09-01

pressures and temperatures and through provision of external UV light and or electrical discharge can be used to form the well known Titan Aerosol species, which can subsequently be analysed using one of several analytical techniques (UV-Vis, FTIR and mass spectrometry). Simulated surfaces can be produced (icy surfaces down to 15K) and subjected to a variety of light and particles (electron and ion) sources. Chemical and physical changes in the surface may be explored using remote spectroscopy. Planetary Simulation chamber for low density atmospheres INTA-CAB The planetary simulation chamber-ultra-high vacuum equipment (PSC-UHV) has been designed to study planetary surfaces and low dense atmospheres, space environments or any other hypothetic environment at UHV. Total pressure ranges from 7 mbar (Martian conditions) to 5x10-9 mbar. A residual gas analyzer regulates gas compositions to ppm precision. Temperature ranges from 4K to 325K and most operations are computer controlled. Radiation levels are simulated using a deuterium UV lamp, and ionization sources. 5 KV electron and noble-gas discharge UV allows measurement of IR and UV spectra and chemical compositions are determined by mass spectroscopy. Planetary Simulation chamber for high density planetary atmospheres at INTA-CAB The facility allows experimental study of planetary environments under high pressure, and was designed to include underground, seafloor and dense atmosphere environments. Analytical capabilities include Raman spectra, physicochemical properties of materials, e.a. thermal conductivity. P-T can be controlled as independent variables to allow monitoring of the tolerance of microorganisms and the stability of materials and their phase changes. Planetary Simulation chamber for icy surfaces at INTA-CAB This chamber is being developed to the growth of ice samples to simulate the chemical and physical properties of ices found on both planetary bodies and their moons. The goal is to allow measurement of the

High pressure studies of planetary matter

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ross, M.

1989-06-01

Those materials which are of greatest interest to the physics of the deep planetary interiors are Fe, H 2 , He and the Ices. These are sufficiently diverse and intensively studied to offer an overview of present day high pressure research. 13 refs., 1 fig

Proto-planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zuckerman, B.

1978-01-01

A 'proto-planetary nebula' or a 'planetary nebula progenitor' is the term used to describe those objects that are losing mass at a rate >approximately 10 -5 Msolar masses/year (i.e. comparable to mass loss rates in planetary nebulae with ionized masses >approximately 0.2 Msolar masses) and which, it is believed, will become planetary nebulae themselves within 5 years. It is shown that most proto-planetary nebulae appear as very red objects although a few have been 'caught' near the middle of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. The precursors of these proto-planetaries are the general red giant population, more specifically probably Mira and semi-regular variables. (Auth.)end

Planetary Radar

Science.gov (United States)

Neish, Catherine D.; Carter, Lynn M.

2015-01-01

This chapter describes the principles of planetary radar, and the primary scientific discoveries that have been made using this technique. The chapter starts by describing the different types of radar systems and how they are used to acquire images and accurate topography of planetary surfaces and probe their subsurface structure. It then explains how these products can be used to understand the properties of the target being investigated. Several examples of discoveries made with planetary radar are then summarized, covering solar system objects from Mercury to Saturn. Finally, opportunities for future discoveries in planetary radar are outlined and discussed.

Planetary submillimeter spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Klein, M. J.

1988-01-01

The aim is to develop a comprehensive observational and analytical program to study solar system physics and meterology by measuring molecular lines in the millimeter and submillimeter spectra of planets and comets. A primary objective is to conduct observations with new JPL and Caltech submillimeter receivers at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. A secondary objective is to continue to monitor the time variable planetary phenomena (e.g., Jupiter and Uranus) at centimeter wavelength using the NASA antennas of the Deep Space Network (DSN).

Reconstruction and visualization of planetary nebulae.

Science.gov (United States)

Magnor, Marcus; Kindlmann, Gordon; Hansen, Charles; Duric, Neb

2005-01-01

From our terrestrially confined viewpoint, the actual three-dimensional shape of distant astronomical objects is, in general, very challenging to determine. For one class of astronomical objects, however, spatial structure can be recovered from conventional 2D images alone. So-called planetary nebulae (PNe) exhibit pronounced symmetry characteristics that come about due to fundamental physical processes. Making use of this symmetry constraint, we present a technique to automatically recover the axisymmetric structure of many planetary nebulae from photographs. With GPU-based volume rendering driving a nonlinear optimization, we estimate the nebula's local emission density as a function of its radial and axial coordinates and we recover the orientation of the nebula relative to Earth. The optimization refines the nebula model and its orientation by minimizing the differences between the rendered image and the original astronomical image. The resulting model allows creating realistic 3D visualizations of these nebulae, for example, for planetarium shows and other educational purposes. In addition, the recovered spatial distribution of the emissive gas can help astrophysicists gain deeper insight into the formation processes of planetary nebulae.

Shaping of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Balick, B.

1987-01-01

The phases of stellar evolution and the development of planetary nebulae are examined. The relation between planetary nebulae and red giants is studied. Spherical and nonspherical cases of shaping planetaries with stellar winds are described. CCD images of nebulae are analyzed, and it is determined that the shape of planetary nebulae depends on ionization levels. Consideration is given to calculating the distances of planetaries using radio images, and molecular hydrogen envelopes which support the wind-shaping model of planetary nebulae

Planetary Magnetism

Science.gov (United States)

Connerney, J. E. P.

2007-01-01

The chapter on Planetary Magnetism by Connerney describes the magnetic fields of the planets, from Mercury to Neptune, including the large satellites (Moon, Ganymede) that have or once had active dynamos. The chapter describes the spacecraft missions and observations that, along with select remote observations, form the basis of our knowledge of planetary magnetic fields. Connerney describes the methods of analysis used to characterize planetary magnetic fields, and the models used to represent the main field (due to dynamo action in the planet's interior) and/or remnant magnetic fields locked in the planet's crust, where appropriate. These observations provide valuable insights into dynamo generation of magnetic fields, the structure and composition of planetary interiors, and the evolution of planets.

Reconfigurable Autonomy for Future Planetary Rovers

Science.gov (United States)

Burroughes, Guy

Extra-terrestrial Planetary rover systems are uniquely remote, placing constraints in regard to communication, environmental uncertainty, and limited physical resources, and requiring a high level of fault tolerance and resistance to hardware degradation. This thesis presents a novel self-reconfiguring autonomous software architecture designed to meet the needs of extraterrestrial planetary environments. At runtime it can safely reconfigure low-level control systems, high-level decisional autonomy systems, and managed software architecture. The architecture can perform automatic Verification and Validation of self-reconfiguration at run-time, and enables a system to be self-optimising, self-protecting, and self-healing. A novel self-monitoring system, which is non-invasive, efficient, tunable, and autonomously deploying, is also presented. The architecture was validated through the use-case of a highly autonomous extra-terrestrial planetary exploration rover. Three major forms of reconfiguration were demonstrated and tested: first, high level adjustment of system internal architecture and goal; second, software module modification; and third, low level alteration of hardware control in response to degradation of hardware and environmental change. The architecture was demonstrated to be robust and effective in a Mars sample return mission use-case testing the operational aspects of a novel, reconfigurable guidance, navigation, and control system for a planetary rover, all operating in concert through a scenario that required reconfiguration of all elements of the system.

Photoionization modelling of planetary nebulae - II. Galactic bulge nebulae, a comparison with literature results

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van Hoof, PAM; Van de Steene, GC

1999-01-01

We have constructed photoionization models of five galactic bulge planetary nebulae using our automatic method, which enables a fully self-consistent determination of the physical parameters of a planetary nebula. The models are constrained using the spectrum, the IRAS and radio fluxes and the

The Solar Connections Observatory for Planetary Environments

Science.gov (United States)

Oliversen, Ronald J.; Harris, Walter M.; Oegerle, William R. (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

The NASA Sun-Earth Connection theme roadmap calls for comparative study of how the planets, comets, and local interstellar medium (LISM) interact with the Sun and respond to solar variability. Through such a study we advance our understanding of basic physical plasma and gas dynamic processes, thus increasing our predictive capabilities for the terrestrial, planetary, and interplanetary environments where future remote and human exploration will occur. Because the other planets have lacked study initiatives comparable to the terrestrial ITM, LWS, and EOS programs, our understanding of the upper atmospheres and near space environments on these worlds is far less detailed than our knowledge of the Earth. To close this gap we propose a mission to study {\\it all) of the solar interacting bodies in our planetary system out to the heliopause with a single remote sensing space observatory, the Solar Connections Observatory for Planetary Environments (SCOPE). SCOPE consists of a binocular EUV/FUV telescope operating from a remote, driftaway orbit that provides sub-arcsecond imaging and broadband medium resolution spectro-imaging over the 55-290 nm bandpass, and high (R>10$^{5}$ resolution H Ly-$\\alpha$ emission line profile measurements of small scale planetary and wide field diffuse solar system structures. A key to the SCOPE approach is to include Earth as a primary science target. From its remote vantage point SCOPE will be able to observe auroral emission to and beyond the rotational pole. The other planets and comets will be monitored in long duration campaigns centered when possible on solar opposition when interleaved terrestrial-planet observations can be used to directly compare the response of both worlds to the same solar wind stream and UV radiation field. Using a combination of observations and MHD models, SCOPE will isolate the different controlling parameters in each planet system and gain insight into the underlying physical processes that define the

Using the Hobby-Eberly telescope to place constraints on planetary system formation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cochran, William D; Endl, Michael

2008-01-01

We are conducting several radial velocity surveys with the 9.2 m Hobby-Eberly telescope (HET). These surveys are designed to improve our understanding of the physics of planetary system formation and evolution. We present recent results from two of these HET surveys. The first is from our survey of metal-poor stars. This survey is designed to probe the physics of planet formation at low metallicities. We present the detection of two planetary companions to HD 155358, a star with [Fe/H] of -0.68. This is the lowest metallicity of any planet host star

Physical properties of the WASP-67 planetary system from multi-colour photometry

Science.gov (United States)

Mancini, L.; Southworth, J.; Ciceri, S.; Calchi Novati, S.; Dominik, M.; Henning, Th.; Jørgensen, U. G.; Korhonen, H.; Nikolov, N.; Alsubai, K. A.; Bozza, V.; Bramich, D. M.; D'Ago, G.; Figuera Jaimes, R.; Galianni, P.; Gu, S.-H.; Harpsøe, K.; Hinse, T. C.; Hundertmark, M.; Juncher, D.; Kains, N.; Popovas, A.; Rabus, M.; Rahvar, S.; Skottfelt, J.; Snodgrass, C.; Street, R.; Surdej, J.; Tsapras, Y.; Vilela, C.; Wang, X.-B.; Wertz, O.

2014-08-01

Context. The extrasolar planet WASP-67 b is the first hot Jupiter definitively known to undergo only partial eclipses. The lack of the second and third contact points in this planetary system makes it difficult to obtain accurate measurements of its physical parameters. Aims: By using new high-precision photometric data, we confirm that WASP-67 b shows grazing eclipses and compute accurate estimates of the physical properties of the planet and its parent star. Methods: We present high-quality, multi-colour, broad-band photometric observations comprising five light curves covering two transit events, obtained using two medium-class telescopes and the telescope-defocusing technique. One transit was observed through a Bessel-R filter and the other simultaneously through filters similar to Sloan g'r'i'z'. We modelled these data using jktebop. The physical parameters of the system were obtained from the analysis of these light curves and from published spectroscopic measurements. Results: All five of our light curves satisfy the criterion for being grazing eclipses. We revise the physical parameters of the whole WASP-67 system and, in particular, significantly improve the measurements of the planet's radius (Rb = 1.091 ± 0.046 RJup) and density (ρb = 0.292 ± 0.036 ρJup), as compared to the values in the discovery paper (Rb = 1.4 -0.2+0.3 RJup and ρb = 0.16 ± 0.08 ρJup). The transit ephemeris was also substantially refined. We investigated the variation of the planet's radius as a function of the wavelength, using the simultaneous multi-band data, finding that our measurements are consistent with a flat spectrum to within the experimental uncertainties. Based on data collected with GROND at the MPG 2.2 m telescope and DFOSC at the Danish 1.54 m telescope.Full Table 2 is only available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr (ftp://130.79.128.5) or via http://cdsarc.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/qcat?J/A+A/568/A127

Galactic planetary nebulae and evolution of their nuclei

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khromov, G.S.

1980-01-01

The galactic system of planetary nebulae is investigated using previously constructed distance scale and kinematics data. A strong effect of observational selection is established, which has the consequence that with increasing distance, ever brighter and younger objects are observed. More accurate determinations of the spatial and surface densities of the planetary nebulae system are obtained as well as a new estimate of their total number in the Galaxy, which is approximately 200,000. New estimates are also made of the masses of the nebulae, the absolute magnitudes of the nebulae and their nuclei, and other physical parameters of these objects. The spatial and kinematic characteristics of the planetary nebulae indicate that they are objects of the old type I population. It is possible that their remote ancestors are main sequence stars of the type B8-A5-F or as yet unidentified objects of the same galactic subsystem

Keplerian planetary orbits in multidimensional Euclidian spaces ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that together, laid the foundation for classical three dimensional mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to those forces. Kepler's laws of planetary motion are also three scientific laws describing the ...

Solar system astrophysics planetary atmospheres and the outer solar system

CERN Document Server

Milone, Eugene F

2014-01-01

The second edition of Solar System Astrophysics: Planetary Atmospheres and the Outer Solar System provides a timely update of our knowledge of planetary atmospheres and the bodies of the outer solar system and their analogs in other planetary systems. This volume begins with an expanded treatment of the physics, chemistry, and meteorology of the atmospheres of the Earth, Venus, and Mars, moving on to their magnetospheres and then to a full discussion of the gas and ice giants and their properties. From here, attention switches to the small bodies of the solar system, beginning with the natural satellites. Then comets, meteors, meteorites, and asteroids are discussed in order, and the volume concludes with the origin and evolution of our solar system. Finally, a fully revised section on extrasolar planetary systems puts the development of our system in a wider and increasingly well understood galactic context. All of the material is presented within a framework of historical importance. This book and its sist...

Planetary magnetospheres

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hill, T.W.; Michel, F.C.

1975-01-01

Recent planetary probes have resulted in the realization of the generality of magnetospheric interactions between the solar wind and the planets. The three categories of planetary magnetospheres are discussed: intrinsic slowly rotating magnetospheres, intrinsic rapidly rotating magnetospheres, and induced magnetospheres. (BJG)

The Impact of Microphysics and Planetary Boundary Layer Physics on Model Simulation of U.S. Deep South Summer Convection

Science.gov (United States)

McCaul, Eugene W., Jr.; Case, Jonathan L.; Zavodsky, Bradley T.; Srikishen, Jayanthi; Medlin, Jeffrey M.; Wood, Lance

2014-01-01

Inspection of output from various configurations of high-resolution, explicit convection forecast models such as the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model indicates significant sensitivity to the choices of model physics pararneterizations employed. Some of the largest apparent sensitivities are related to the specifications of the cloud microphysics and planetary boundary layer physics packages. In addition, these sensitivities appear to be especially pronounced for the weakly-sheared, multicell modes of deep convection characteristic of the Deep South of the United States during the boreal summer. Possible ocean-land sensitivities also argue for further examination of the impacts of using unique ocean-land surface initialization datasets provided by the NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRn Center to select NOAAlNWS weather forecast offices. To obtain better quantitative understanding of these sensitivities and also to determine the utility of the ocean-land initialization data, we have executed matrices of regional WRF forecasts for selected convective events near Mobile, AL (MOB), and Houston, TX (HGX). The matrices consist of identically initialized WRF 24-h forecasts using any of eight microphysics choices and any of three planetary boWldary layer choices. The resulting 24 simulations performed for each event within either the MOB or HGX regions are then compared to identify the sensitivities of various convective storm metrics to the physics choices. Particular emphasis is placed on sensitivities of precipitation timing, intensity, and coverage, as well as amount and coverage oflightuing activity diagnosed from storm kinematics and graupel in the mixed phase layer. The results confirm impressions gleaned from study of the behavior of variously configured WRF runs contained in the ensembles produced each spring at the Center for the Analysis and Prediction of Storms, but with the benefit of more straightforward control of the

Planetary Atmosphere and Surfaces Chamber (PASC: A Platform to Address Various Challenges in Astrobiology

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Eva Mateo-Marti

2014-08-01

Full Text Available The study of planetary environments of astrobiological interest has become a major challenge. Because of the obvious technical and economical limitations on in situ planetary exploration, laboratory simulations are one of the most feasible research options to make advances both in planetary science and in developing a consistent description of the origin of life. With this objective in mind, we applied vacuum technology to the design of versatile vacuum chambers devoted to the simulation of planetary atmospheres’ conditions. These vacuum chambers are able to simulate atmospheres and surface temperatures representative of the majority of planetary objects, and they are especially appropriate for studying the physical, chemical and biological changes induced in a particular sample by in situ irradiation or physical parameters in a controlled environment. Vacuum chambers are a promising potential tool in several scientific and technological fields, such as engineering, chemistry, geology and biology. They also offer the possibility of discriminating between the effects of individual physical parameters and selected combinations thereof. The implementation of our vacuum chambers in combination with analytical techniques was specifically developed to make feasible the in situ physico-chemical characterization of samples. Many wide-ranging applications in astrobiology are detailed herein to provide an understanding of the potential and flexibility of these experimental systems. Instruments and engineering technology for space applications could take advantage of our environment-simulation chambers for sensor calibration. Our systems also provide the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the chemical reactivity of molecules on surfaces under different environments, thereby leading to a greater understanding of interface processes in prebiotic chemical reactions and facilitating studies of UV photostability and photochemistry on surfaces

Using Sandia's Z Machine and Density Functional Theory Simulations to Understand Planetary Materials

Science.gov (United States)

Root, Seth

2017-06-01

The use of Z, NIF, and Omega have produced many breakthrough results in high pressure physics. One area that has greatly benefited from these facilities is the planetary sciences. The high pressure behavior of planetary materials has implications for numerous geophysical and planetary processes. The continuing discovery of exosolar super-Earths demonstrates the need for accurate equation of state data to better inform our models of their interior structures. Planetary collision processes, such as the moon-forming giant impact, require understanding planetary materials over a wide-range of pressures and temperatures. Using Z, we examined the shock compression response of some common planetary materials: MgO, Mg2SiO4, and Fe2O3 (hematite). We compare the experimental shock compression measurements with density functional theory (DFT) based quantum molecular dynamics (QMD) simulations. The combination of experiment and theory provides clearer understanding of planetary materials properties at extreme conditions. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-mission laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

A drilling tool design and in situ identification of planetary regolith mechanical parameters

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Weiwei; Jiang, Shengyuan; Ji, Jie; Tang, Dewei

2018-05-01

The physical and mechanical properties as well as the heat flux of regolith are critical evidence in the study of planetary origin and evolution. Moreover, the mechanical properties of planetary regolith have great value for guiding future human planetary activities. For planetary subsurface exploration, an inchworm boring robot (IBR) has been proposed to penetrate the regolith, and the mechanical properties of the regolith are expected to be simultaneously investigated during the penetration process using the drilling tool on the IBR. This paper provides a preliminary study of an in situ method for measuring planetary regolith mechanical parameters using a drilling tool on a test bed. A conical-screw drilling tool was designed, and its drilling load characteristics were experimentally analyzed. Based on the drilling tool-regolith interaction model, two identification methods for determining the planetary regolith bearing and shearing parameters are proposed. The bearing and shearing parameters of lunar regolith simulant were successfully determined according to the pressure-sinkage tests and shear tests conducted on the test bed. The effects of the operating parameters on the identification results were also analyzed. The results indicate a feasible scheme for future planetary subsurface exploration.

Physics and chemistry of the solar system

CERN Document Server

Lewis, John S

2004-01-01

Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System, 2nd Edition, is a comprehensive survey of the planetary physics and physical chemistry of our own solar system. It covers current research in these areas and the planetary sciences that have benefited from both earth-based and spacecraft-based experimentation. These experiments form the basis of this encyclopedic reference, which skillfully fuses synthesis and explanation. Detailed chapters review each of the major planetary bodies as well as asteroids, comets, and other small orbitals. Astronomers, physicists, and planetary scientists can use this state-of-the-art book for both research and teaching. This Second Edition features extensive new material, including expanded treatment of new meteorite classes, spacecraft findings from Mars Pathfinder through Mars Odyssey 2001, recent reflections on brown dwarfs, and descriptions of planned NASA, ESA, and Japanese planetary missions.* New edition features expanded treatment of new meteorite classes, the latest spacecraft...

Luminosity function for planetary nebulae and the number of planetary nebulae in local group galaxies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jacoby, G.H.

1980-01-01

Identifications of 19 and 34 faint planetary nebulae have been made in the central regions of the SMC and LMC, respectively, using on-line/off-line filter photography at [O III] and Hα. The previously known brighter planetary nebulae in these fields, eight in both the SMC and the LMC, were also identified. On the basis of the ratio of the numbers of faint to bright planetary nebulae in these fields and the numbers of bright planetary nebulae in the surrounding fields, the total numbers of planetary nebulae in the SMC and LMC are estimated to be 285 +- 78 and 996 +- 253, respectively. Corrections have been applied to account for omissions due to crowding confusion in previous surveys, spatial and detectability incompleteness, and obscuration by dust.Equatorial coordinates and finding charts are presented for all the identified planetary nebulae. The coordinates have uncertainties smaller than 0.''6 relative to nearby bright stars, thereby allowing acquisition of the planetary nebulae by bling offsetting.Monochromatic fluxes are derived photographically and used to determine the luminosity function for Magellanic Cloud planetary nebulae as faint as 6 mag below the brightest. The luminosity function is used to estimate the total numbers of planetary nebulae in eight Local Group galaxies in which only bright planetary nebulae have been identified. The dervied luminosity specific number of planetary nebulae per unit luminosity is nearly constant for all eight galaxies, having a value of 6.1 x 10 -7 planetary nebulae L -1 /sub sun/. The mass specific number, based on the three galaxies with well-determined masses, is 2.1 x 10 -7 planetary nebulae M -1 /sub sun/. With estimates for the luminosity and mass of our Galaxy, its total number of planetary nebulae is calculated to be 10,000 +- 4000, in support of the Cudworth distance scale

Rheology of planetary ices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Durham, W.B. [Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States); Kirby, S.H.; Stern, L.A. [Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA (United States)

1996-04-24

The brittle and ductile rheology of ices of water, ammonia, methane, and other volatiles, in combination with rock particles and each other, have a primary influence of the evolution and ongoing tectonics of icy moons of the outer solar system. Laboratory experiments help constrain the rheology of solar system ices. Standard experimental techniques can be used because the physical conditions under which most solar system ices exist are within reach of conventional rock mechanics testing machines, adapted to the low subsolidus temperatures of the materials in question. The purpose of this review is to summarize the results of a decade-long experimental deformation program and to provide some background in deformation physics in order to lend some appreciation to the application of these measurements to the planetary setting.

The Role of NASA's Planetary Data System in the Planetary Spatial Data Infrastructure Initiative

Science.gov (United States)

Arvidson, R. E.; Gaddis, L. R.

2017-12-01

An effort underway in NASA's planetary science community is the Mapping and Planetary Spatial Infrastructure Team (MAPSIT, http://www.lpi.usra.edu/mapsit/). MAPSIT is a community assessment group organized to address a lack of strategic spatial data planning for space science and exploration. Working with MAPSIT, a new initiative of NASA and USGS is the development of a Planetary Spatial Data Infrastructure (PSDI) that builds on extensive knowledge on storing, accessing, and working with terrestrial spatial data. PSDI is a knowledge and technology framework that enables the efficient discovery, access, and exploitation of planetary spatial data to facilitate data analysis, knowledge synthesis, and decision-making. NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) archives >1.2 petabytes of digital data resulting from decades of planetary exploration and research. The PDS charter focuses on the efficient collection, archiving, and accessibility of these data. The PDS emphasis on data preservation and archiving is complementary to that of the PSDI initiative because the latter utilizes and extends available data to address user needs in the areas of emerging technologies, rapid development of tailored delivery systems, and development of online collaborative research environments. The PDS plays an essential PSDI role because it provides expertise to help NASA missions and other data providers to organize and document their planetary data, to collect and maintain the archives with complete, well-documented and peer-reviewed planetary data, to make planetary data accessible by providing online data delivery tools and search services, and ultimately to ensure the long-term preservation and usability of planetary data. The current PDS4 information model extends and expands PDS metadata and relationships between and among elements of the collections. The PDS supports data delivery through several node services, including the Planetary Image Atlas (https

A New Model of the Fractional Order Dynamics of the Planetary Gears

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vera Nikolic-Stanojevic

2013-01-01

Full Text Available A theoretical model of planetary gears dynamics is presented. Planetary gears are parametrically excited by the time-varying mesh stiffness that fluctuates as the number of gear tooth pairs in contact changes during gear rotation. In the paper, it has been indicated that even the small disturbance in design realizations of this gear cause nonlinear properties of dynamics which are the source of vibrations and noise in the gear transmission. Dynamic model of the planetary gears with four degrees of freedom is used. Applying the basic principles of analytical mechanics and taking the initial and boundary conditions into consideration, it is possible to obtain the system of equations representing physical meshing process between the two or more gears. This investigation was focused to a new model of the fractional order dynamics of the planetary gear. For this model analytical expressions for the corresponding fractional order modes like one frequency eigen vibrational modes are obtained. For one planetary gear, eigen fractional modes are obtained, and a visualization is presented. By using MathCAD the solution is obtained.

Intelligence for Human-Assistant Planetary Surface Robots

Science.gov (United States)

Hirsh, Robert; Graham, Jeffrey; Tyree, Kimberly; Sierhuis, Maarten; Clancey, William J.

2006-01-01

The central premise in developing effective human-assistant planetary surface robots is that robotic intelligence is needed. The exact type, method, forms and/or quantity of intelligence is an open issue being explored on the ERA project, as well as others. In addition to field testing, theoretical research into this area can help provide answers on how to design future planetary robots. Many fundamental intelligence issues are discussed by Murphy [2], including (a) learning, (b) planning, (c) reasoning, (d) problem solving, (e) knowledge representation, and (f) computer vision (stereo tracking, gestures). The new "social interaction/emotional" form of intelligence that some consider critical to Human Robot Interaction (HRI) can also be addressed by human assistant planetary surface robots, as human operators feel more comfortable working with a robot when the robot is verbally (or even physically) interacting with them. Arkin [3] and Murphy are both proponents of the hybrid deliberative-reasoning/reactive-execution architecture as the best general architecture for fully realizing robot potential, and the robots discussed herein implement a design continuously progressing toward this hybrid philosophy. The remainder of this chapter will describe the challenges associated with robotic assistance to astronauts, our general research approach, the intelligence incorporated into our robots, and the results and lessons learned from over six years of testing human-assistant mobile robots in field settings relevant to planetary exploration. The chapter concludes with some key considerations for future work in this area.

Terrestrial analogs, planetary geology, and the nature of geological reasoning

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Victor R.

2014-05-01

Analogical reasoning is critical to planetary geology, but its role can be misconstrued by those unfamiliar with the practice of that science. The methodological importance of analogy to geology lies in the formulation of genetic hypotheses, an absolutely essential component of geological reasoning that was either ignored or denigrated by most 20th century philosophers of science, who took the theoretical/ experimental methodology of physics to be the sole model for all of scientific inquiry. Following the seminal 19th century work of Grove Karl Gilbert, an early pioneer of planetary geology, it has long been recognized that broad experience with and understanding of terrestrial geological phenomena provide geologists with their most effective resource for the invention of potentially fruitful, working hypotheses. The actions of (1) forming such hypotheses, (2) following their consequences, and (3) testing those consequences comprise integral parts of effective geological practice in regard to the understanding of planetary surfaces. Nevertheless, the logical terminology and philosophical bases for such practice will be unfamiliar to most planetary scientists, both geologists and nongeologists. The invention of geological hypotheses involves both inductive inferences of the type Gilbert termed “empiric classification” and abductive inferences of a logical form made famous by the 19th century American logician Charles Sanders Peirce. The testing and corroboration of geological hypotheses relies less on the correspondence logic of theoretical/ experimental sciences, like physics, and more on the logic of consistency, coherence, and consilience that characterizes the investigative and historical sciences of interpretation exemplified by geology.

The influence of planetary attractions on the solar tachocline

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Callebaut, D.K.; de Jager, C.; Duhau, S.

2012-01-01

We present a physical analysis of the occasionally forwarded hypothesis that solar variability, as shown in the various photospheric and outer solar layer activities, might be due to the Newtonian attraction by the planets. We calculate the planetary forces exerted on the tachocline and thereby not

The Auroral Planetary Imaging and Spectroscopy (APIS) service

Science.gov (United States)

Lamy, L.; Prangé, R.; Henry, F.; Le Sidaner, P.

2015-06-01

The Auroral Planetary Imaging and Spectroscopy (APIS) service, accessible online, provides an open and interactive access to processed auroral observations of the outer planets and their satellites. Such observations are of interest for a wide community at the interface between planetology, magnetospheric and heliospheric physics. APIS consists of (i) a high level database, built from planetary auroral observations acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since 1997 with its mostly used Far-Ultraviolet spectro-imagers, (ii) a dedicated search interface aimed at browsing efficiently this database through relevant conditional search criteria and (iii) the ability to interactively work with the data online through plotting tools developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) community, such as Aladin and Specview. This service is VO compliant and can therefore also been queried by external search tools of the VO community. The diversity of available data and the capability to sort them out by relevant physical criteria shall in particular facilitate statistical studies, on long-term scales and/or multi-instrumental multi-spectral combined analysis.

Europlanet/IDIS: Combining Diverse Planetary Observations and Models

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidt, Walter; Capria, Maria Teresa; Chanteur, Gerard

2013-04-01

Planetary research involves a diversity of research fields from astrophysics and plasma physics to atmospheric physics, climatology, spectroscopy and surface imaging. Data from all these disciplines are collected from various space-borne platforms or telescopes, supported by modelling teams and laboratory work. In order to interpret one set of data often supporting data from different disciplines and other missions are needed while the scientist does not always have the detailed expertise to access and utilize these observations. The Integrated and Distributed Information System (IDIS) [1], developed in the framework of the Europlanet-RI project, implements a Virtual Observatory approach ([2] and [3]), where different data sets, stored in archives around the world and in different formats, are accessed, re-formatted and combined to meet the user's requirements without the need of familiarizing oneself with the different technical details. While observational astrophysical data from different observatories could already earlier be accessed via Virtual Observatories, this concept is now extended to diverse planetary data and related model data sets, spectral data bases etc. A dedicated XML-based Europlanet Data Model (EPN-DM) [4] was developed based on data models from the planetary science community and the Virtual Observatory approach. A dedicated editor simplifies the registration of new resources. As the EPN-DM is a super-set of existing data models existing archives as well as new spectroscopic or chemical data bases for the interpretation of atmospheric or surface observations, or even modeling facilities at research institutes in Europe or Russia can be easily integrated and accessed via a Table Access Protocol (EPN-TAP) [5] adapted from the corresponding protocol of the International Virtual Observatory Alliance [6] (IVOA-TAP). EPN-TAP allows to search catalogues, retrieve data and make them available through standard IVOA tools if the access to the archive

A Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Hampton University

Science.gov (United States)

Paterson, W. R.; McCormick, M. P.; Russell, J. M.; Anderson, J.; Kireev, S.; Loughman, R. P.; Smith, W. L.

2006-12-01

With this presentation we discuss the status of plans for a Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at Hampton University. Hampton University is a privately endowed, non-profit, non-sectarian, co-educational, and historically black university with 38 baccalaureate, 14 masters, and 4 doctoral degree programs. The graduate program in physics currently offers advanced degrees with concentration in Atmospheric Science. The 10 students now enrolled benefit substantially from the research experience and infrastructure resident in the university's Center for Atmospheric Sciences (CAS), which is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Promoting a greater diversity of participants in geosciences is an important objective for CAS. To accomplish this, we require reliable pipelines of students into the program. One such pipeline is our undergraduate minor in Space, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences (SEAS minor). This minor concentraton of study is contributing to awareness of geosciences on the Hampton University campus, and beyond, as our students matriculate and join the workforce, or pursue higher degrees. However, the current graduate program, with its emphasis on physics, is not necessarily optimal for atmospheric scientists, and it limits our ability to recruit students who do not have a physics degree. To increase the base of candidate students, we have proposed creation of a Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, which could attract students from a broader range of academic disciplines. The revised curriculum would provide for greater concentration in atmospheric and planetary sciences, yet maintain a degree of flexibility to allow for coursework in physics or other areas to meet the needs of individual students. The department would offer the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees, and maintain the SEAS minor. The university's administration and faculty have approved our plan for this new department pending authorization by the university's board of trustees, which will

Characteristics of planetary nebulae and H II regions based on lambda = 1. 35 cm continuum measurements

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Braz, M A; Jardim, J O; Kaufmann, P [Universidade Mackenzie, Sao Paulo (Brazil). Centro de Radio-Astronomia et Astrofisica

1975-11-01

Physical parameters are derived and discussed for stronger H II regions and planetary nebulae for which continuum radio data at lambda = 1.35 cm was obtained. The study includes southern hemisphere planetary nebulae IC-418, NGC-6,302, NGC-6,369, and H II regions RCW-65, RCW-87, RCW-99, H 2-3 and H 2-6.

Planetary Landscape Geography

Science.gov (United States)

Hargitai, H.

INTRODUCTION Landscape is one of the most often used category in physical ge- ography. The term "landshap" was introduced by Dutch painters in the 15-16th cen- tury. [1] The elements that build up a landscape (or environment) on Earth consists of natural (biogenic and abiogenic - lithologic, atmospheric, hydrologic) and artificial (antropogenic) factors. Landscape is a complex system of these different elements. The same lithology makes different landscapes under different climatic conditions. If the same conditions are present, the same landscape type will appear. Landscapes build up a hierarchic system and cover the whole surface. On Earth, landscapes can be classified and qualified according to their characteristics: relief forms (morphology), and its potential economic value. Aesthetic and subjective parameters can also be considered. Using the data from landers and data from orbiters we can now classify planetary landscapes (these can be used as geologic mapping units as well). By looking at a unknown landscape, we can determine the processes that created it and its development history. This was the case in the Pathfinder/Sojourner panoramas. [2]. DISCUSSION Planetary landscape evolution. We can draw a raw landscape develop- ment history by adding the different landscape building elements to each other. This has a strong connection with the planet's thermal evolution (age of the planet or the present surface materials) and with orbital parameters (distance from the central star, orbit excentricity etc). This way we can build a complex system in which we use differ- ent evolutional stages of lithologic, atmospheric, hydrologic and biogenic conditions which determine the given - Solar System or exoplanetary - landscape. Landscape elements. "Simple" landscapes can be found on asteroids: no linear horizon is present (not differentiated body, only impact structures), no atmosphere (therefore no atmospheric scattering - black sky as part of the landscape) and no

New and misclassified planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kohoutek, L.

1978-01-01

Since the 'Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae' 226 new objects have been classified as planetary nebulae. They are summarized in the form of designations, names, coordinates and the references to the discovery. Further 9 new objects have been added and called 'proto-planetary nebulae', but their status is still uncertain. Only 34 objects have been included in the present list of misclassified planetary nebulae although the number of doubtful cases is much larger. (Auth.)

The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system

Science.gov (United States)

Scafetta, N.

2014-01-01

The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system, which since Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570-495 BC) is known as the music of the spheres, is briefly reviewed from the Renaissance up to contemporary research. Copernicus' heliocentric model from 1543 suggested that the planets of our solar system form a kind of mutually ordered and quasi-synchronized system. From 1596 to 1619 Kepler formulated preliminary mathematical relations of approximate commensurabilities among the planets, which were later reformulated in the Titius-Bode rule (1766-1772), which successfully predicted the orbital position of Ceres and Uranus. Following the discovery of the ~ 11 yr sunspot cycle, in 1859 Wolf suggested that the observed solar variability could be approximately synchronized with the orbital movements of Venus, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. Modern research has further confirmed that (1) the planetary orbital periods can be approximately deduced from a simple system of resonant frequencies; (2) the solar system oscillates with a specific set of gravitational frequencies, and many of them (e.g., within the range between 3 yr and 100 yr) can be approximately constructed as harmonics of a base period of ~ 178.38 yr; and (3) solar and climate records are also characterized by planetary harmonics from the monthly to the millennial timescales. This short review concludes with an emphasis on the contribution of the author's research on the empirical evidences and physical modeling of both solar and climate variability based on astronomical harmonics. The general conclusion is that the solar system works as a resonator characterized by a specific harmonic planetary structure that also synchronizes the Sun's activity and the Earth's climate. The special issue Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts (Mörner et al., 2013) further develops the ideas about the planetary-solar-terrestrial interaction with the personal contribution of 10

Dust in planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwok, S.

1980-01-01

A two-component dust model is suggested to explain the infrared emission from planetary nebulae. A cold dust component located in the extensive remnant of the red-giant envelope exterior to the visible nebula is responsible for the far-infrared emission. A ward dust component, which is condensed after the formation of the planetary nebula and confined within the ionized gas shell, emits most of the near- and mid-infrared radiation. The observations of NGC 7027 are shown to be consisten with such a model. The correlation of silicate emission in several planetary nebulae with an approximately +1 spectral index at low radio frequencies suggests that both the silicate and radio emissions originate from the remnant of the circumstellar envelope of th precursor star and are observable only while the planetary nebula is young. It is argued that oxygen-rich stars as well as carbon-rich stars can be progenitors of planetary nebulae

Techniques for Engaging the Public in Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Shupla, Christine; Shaner, Andrew; Smith Hackler, Amanda

2017-10-01

Public audiences are often curious about planetary science. Scientists and education and public engagement specialists can leverage this interest to build scientific literacy. This poster will highlight research-based techniques the authors have tested with a variety of audiences, and are disseminating to planetary scientists through trainings.Techniques include:Make it personal. Audiences are interested in personal stories, which can capture the excitement, joy, and challenges that planetary scientists experience in their research. Audiences can learn more about the nature of science by meeting planetary scientists and hearing personal stories about their motivations, interests, and how they conduct research.Share relevant connections. Most audiences have very limited understanding of the solar system and the features and compositions of planetary bodies, but they enjoy learning about those objects they can see at night and factors that connect to their culture or local community.Demonstrate concepts. Some concepts can be clarified with analogies, but others can be demonstrated or modeled with materials. Demonstrations that are messy, loud, or that yield surprising results are particularly good at capturing an audience’s attention, but if they don’t directly relate to the key concept, they can serve as a distraction.Give them a role. Audience participation is an important engagement technique. In a presentation, scientists can invite the audience to respond to questions, pause to share their thoughts with a neighbor, or vote on an answer. Audiences can respond physically to prompts, raising hands, pointing, or clapping, or even moving to different locations in the room.Enable the audience to conduct an activity. People learn best by doing and by teaching others; simple hands-on activities in which the audience is discovering something themselves can be extremely effective at engaging audiences.This poster will cite examples of each technique, resources that

Instrumented Moles for Planetary Subsurface Regolith Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, L. O.; Coste, P. A.; Grzesik, A.; Knollenberg, J.; Magnani, P.; Nadalini, R.; Re, E.; Romstedt, J.; Sohl, F.; Spohn, T.

2006-12-01

Soil-like materials, or regolith, on solar system objects provide a record of physical and/or chemical weathering processes on the object in question and as such possess significant scientific relevance for study by landed planetary missions. In the case of Mars, a complex interplay has been at work between impact gardening, aeolian as well as possibly fluvial processes. This resulted in regolith that is texturally as well as compositionally layered as hinted at by results from the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) missions which are capable of accessing shallow subsurface soils by wheel trenching. Significant subsurface soil access on Mars, i.e. to depths of a meter or more, remains to be accomplished on future missions. This has been one of the objectives of the unsuccessful Beagle 2 landed element of the ESA Mars Express mission having been equipped with the Planetary Underground Tool (PLUTO) subsurface soil sampling Mole system capable of self-penetration into regolith due to an internal electro-mechanical hammering mechanism. This lightweight device of less than 900 g mass was designed to repeatedly obtain and deliver to the lander regolith samples from depths down to 2 m which would have been analysed for organic matter and, specifically, organic carbon from potential extinct microbial activity. With funding from the ESA technology programme, an evolved Mole system - the Instrumented Mole System (IMS) - has now been developed to a readiness level of TRL 6. The IMS is to serve as a carrier for in situ instruments for measurements in planetary subsurface soils. This could complement or even eliminate the need to recover samples to the surface. The Engineering Model hardware having been developed within this effort is designed for accommodating a geophysical instrument package (Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, HP3) that would be capable of measuring regolith physical properties and planetary heat flow. The chosen design encompasses a two-body Mole

TOWARD A DETERMINISTIC MODEL OF PLANETARY FORMATION. VII. ECCENTRICITY DISTRIBUTION OF GAS GIANTS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ida, S.; Lin, D. N. C.; Nagasawa, M.

2013-01-01

The ubiquity of planets and diversity of planetary systems reveal that planet formation encompasses many complex and competing processes. In this series of papers, we develop and upgrade a population synthesis model as a tool to identify the dominant physical effects and to calibrate the range of physical conditions. Recent planet searches have led to the discovery of many multiple-planet systems. Any theoretical models of their origins must take into account dynamical interactions between emerging protoplanets. Here, we introduce a prescription to approximate the close encounters between multiple planets. We apply this method to simulate the growth, migration, and dynamical interaction of planetary systems. Our models show that in relatively massive disks, several gas giants and rocky/icy planets emerge, migrate, and undergo dynamical instability. Secular perturbation between planets leads to orbital crossings, eccentricity excitation, and planetary ejection. In disks with modest masses, two or less gas giants form with multiple super-Earths. Orbital stability in these systems is generally maintained and they retain the kinematic structure after gas in their natal disks is depleted. These results reproduce the observed planetary mass-eccentricity and semimajor axis-eccentricity correlations. They also suggest that emerging gas giants can scatter residual cores to the outer disk regions. Subsequent in situ gas accretion onto these cores can lead to the formation of distant (∼> 30 AU) gas giants with nearly circular orbits

From red giants to planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwok, S.

1982-01-01

The transition from red giants to planetary nebulae is studied by comparing the spectral characteristics of red giant envelopes and planetary nebulae. Observational and theoretical evidence both suggest that remnants of red giant envelopes may still be present in planetary nebula systems and should have significant effects on their formation. The dynamical effects of the interaction of stellar winds from central stars of planetary nebulae with the remnant red giant envelopes are evaluated and the mechanism found to be capable of producing the observed masses and momenta of planetary nebulae. The observed mass-radii relation of planetary nebulae may also be best explained by the interacting winds model. The possibility that red giant mass loss, and therefore the production of planetary nebulae, is different between Population I and II systems is also discussed

Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) for Planetary Atmospheric Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Bocanegra Bahamon, Tatiana; Cimo, Giuseppe; Duev, Dmitry; Gurvits, Leonid; Molera Calves, Guifre; Pogrebenko, Sergei

2015-04-01

The Planetary Radio Interferometry and Doppler Experiment (PRIDE) is a technique that allows the determination of the radial velocity and lateral coordinates of planetary spacecraft with very high accuracy (Duev, 2012). The setup of the experiment consists of several ground stations from the European VLBI Network (EVN) located around the globe, which simultaneously perform Doppler tracking of a spacecraft carrier radio signal, and are subsequently processed in a VLBI-style in phase referencing mode. Because of the accurate examination of the changes in phase and amplitude of the radio signal propagating from the spacecraft to the multiple stations on Earth, the PRIDE technique can be used for several fields of planetary research, among which planetary atmospheric studies, gravimetry and ultra-precise celestial mechanics of planetary systems. In the study at hand the application of this technique for planetary atmospheric investigations is demonstrated. As a test case, radio occultation experiments were conducted with PRIDE having as target ESA's Venus Express, during different observing sessions with multiple ground stations in April 2012 and March 2014. Once each of the stations conducts the observation, the raw data is delivered to the correlation center at the Joint Institute for VLBI in Europe (JIVE) located in the Netherlands. The signals are processed with a high spectral resolution and phase detection software package from which Doppler observables of each station are derived. Subsequently the Doppler corrected signals are correlated to derive the VLBI observables. These two sets of observables are used for precise orbit determination. The reconstructed orbit along with the Doppler observables are used as input for the radio occultation processing software, which consists of mainly two modules, the geometrical optics module and the ray tracing inversion module, from which vertical density profiles, and subsequently, temperature and pressure profiles of Venus

HESS Opinions: A planetary boundary on freshwater use is misleading

Science.gov (United States)

Heistermann, Maik

2017-07-01

In 2009, a group of prominent Earth scientists introduced the planetary boundaries (PB) framework: they suggested nine global control variables, and defined corresponding thresholds which, if crossed, could generate unacceptable environmental change. The concept builds on systems theory, and views Earth as a complex adaptive system in which anthropogenic disturbances may trigger non-linear, abrupt, and irreversible changes at the global scale, and push the Earth system outside the stable environmental state of the Holocene. While the idea has been remarkably successful in both science and policy circles, it has also raised fundamental concerns, as the majority of suggested processes and their corresponding planetary boundaries do not operate at the global scale, and thus apparently lack the potential to trigger abrupt planetary changes. This paper picks up the debate with specific regard to the planetary boundary on global freshwater use. While the bio-physical impacts of excessive water consumption are typically confined to the river basin scale, the PB proponents argue that water-induced environmental disasters could build up to planetary-scale feedbacks and system failures. So far, however, no evidence has been presented to corroborate that hypothesis. Furthermore, no coherent approach has been presented to what extent a planetary threshold value could reflect the risk of regional environmental disaster. To be sure, the PB framework was revised in 2015, extending the planetary freshwater boundary with a set of basin-level boundaries inferred from environmental water flow assumptions. Yet, no new evidence was presented, either with respect to the ability of those basin-level boundaries to reflect the risk of regional regime shifts or with respect to a potential mechanism linking river basins to the planetary scale. So while the idea of a planetary boundary on freshwater use appears intriguing, the line of arguments presented so far remains speculative and

Trends in Planetary Data Analysis. Executive summary of the Planetary Data Workshop

Science.gov (United States)

Evans, N.

1984-09-01

Planetary data include non-imaging remote sensing data, which includes spectrometric, radiometric, and polarimetric remote sensing observations. Also included are in-situ, radio/radar data, and Earth based observation. Also discussed is development of a planetary data system. A catalog to identify observations will be the initial entry point for all levels of users into the data system. There are seven distinct data support services: encyclopedia, data index, data inventory, browse, search, sample, and acquire. Data systems for planetary science users must provide access to data, process, store, and display data. Two standards will be incorporated into the planetary data system: Standard communications protocol and Standard format data unit. The data system configuration must combine a distributed system with those of a centralized system. Fiscal constraints have made prioritization important. Activities include saving previous mission data, planning/cost analysis, and publishing of proceedings.

Planetary Data System (PDS)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The Planetary Data System (PDS) is an archive of data products from NASA planetary missions, which is sponsored by NASA's Science Mission Directorate. We actively...

Planetary Science Training for NASA's Astronauts: Preparing for Future Human Planetary Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Bleacher, J. E.; Evans, C. A.; Graff, T. G.; Young, K. E.; Zeigler, R.

2017-02-01

Astronauts selected in 2017 and in future years will carry out in situ planetary science research during exploration of the solar system. Training to enable this goal is underway and is flexible to accommodate an evolving planetary science vision.

Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics

Science.gov (United States)

Vondrak, Richard R. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Laboratory for Extraterrestrial Physics (LEP) performs experimental and theoretical research on the heliosphere, the interstellar medium, and the magnetospheres and upper atmospheres of the planets, including Earth. LEP space scientists investigate the structure and dynamics of the magnetospheres of the planets including Earth. Their research programs encompass the magnetic fields intrinsic to many planetary bodies as well as their charged-particle environments and plasma-wave emissions. The LEP also conducts research into the nature of planetary ionospheres and their coupling to both the upper atmospheres and their magnetospheres. Finally, the LEP carries out a broad-based research program in heliospheric physics covering the origins of the solar wind, its propagation outward through the solar system all the way to its termination where it encounters the local interstellar medium. Special emphasis is placed on the study of solar coronal mass ejections (CME's), shock waves, and the structure and properties of the fast and slow solar wind. LEP planetary scientists study the chemistry and physics of planetary stratospheres and tropospheres and of solar system bodies including meteorites, asteroids, comets, and planets. The LEP conducts a focused program in astronomy, particularly in the infrared and in short as well as very long radio wavelengths. We also perform an extensive program of laboratory research, including spectroscopy and physical chemistry related to astronomical objects. The Laboratory proposes, develops, fabricates, and integrates experiments on Earth-orbiting, planetary, and heliospheric spacecraft to measure the characteristics of planetary atmospheres and magnetic fields, and electromagnetic fields and plasmas in space. We design and develop spectrometric instrumentation for continuum and spectral line observations in the x-ray, gamma-ray, infrared, and radio regimes; these are flown on spacecraft to study

Special issue on enabling open and interoperable access to Planetary Science and Heliophysics databases and tools

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

The large amount of data generated by modern space missions calls for a change of organization of data distribution and access procedures. Although long term archives exist for telescopic and space-borne observations, high-level functions need to be developed on top of these repositories to make Planetary Science and Heliophysics data more accessible and to favor interoperability. Results of simulations and reference laboratory data also need to be integrated to support and interpret the observations. Interoperable software and interfaces have recently been developed in many scientific domains. The Virtual Observatory (VO) interoperable standards developed for Astronomy by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA) can be adapted to Planetary Sciences, as demonstrated by the VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access) team within the Europlanet-H2020-RI project. Other communities have developed their own standards: GIS (Geographic Information System) for Earth and planetary surfaces tools, SPASE (Space Physics Archive Search and Extract) for space plasma, PDS4 (NASA Planetary Data System, version 4) and IPDA (International Planetary Data Alliance) for planetary mission archives, etc, and an effort to make them interoperable altogether is starting, including automated workflows to process related data from different sources.

Shock modification and chemistry and planetary geologic processes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boslough, M.S.

1991-01-01

This paper brings the rapid advances on shock processing of materials to the attention of Earth scientists, and to put these advances in the context of planetary geologic processes. Most of the recent research in this area has been directed at materials modification an synthesis, and the information gained has direct relevance to shock effects in nature. Research on various types of shock modification and chemistry in both naturally and experimentally shocked rocks and minerals is reviewed, and where appropriate their significance to planetary processes is indicated. As a case study, the surface of Mars is suggested as a place where conditions are optimal for shock processing to be a dominant factor. The various mechanisms of shock modification, activation, synthesis and decomposition are all proposed as major contributors to the evolution of chemical, mineralogical, and physical properties of the Martian regolith

Planetary Geologic Mapping Handbook - 2009

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, K. L.; Skinner, J. A.; Hare, T. M.

2009-01-01

Geologic maps present, in an historical context, fundamental syntheses of interpretations of the materials, landforms, structures, and processes that characterize planetary surfaces and shallow subsurfaces (e.g., Varnes, 1974). Such maps also provide a contextual framework for summarizing and evaluating thematic research for a given region or body. In planetary exploration, for example, geologic maps are used for specialized investigations such as targeting regions of interest for data collection and for characterizing sites for landed missions. Whereas most modern terrestrial geologic maps are constructed from regional views provided by remote sensing data and supplemented in detail by field-based observations and measurements, planetary maps have been largely based on analyses of orbital photography. For planetary bodies in particular, geologic maps commonly represent a snapshot of a surface, because they are based on available information at a time when new data are still being acquired. Thus the field of planetary geologic mapping has been evolving rapidly to embrace the use of new data and modern technology and to accommodate the growing needs of planetary exploration. Planetary geologic maps have been published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) since 1962 (Hackman, 1962). Over this time, numerous maps of several planetary bodies have been prepared at a variety of scales and projections using the best available image and topographic bases. Early geologic map bases commonly consisted of hand-mosaicked photographs or airbrushed shaded-relief views and geologic linework was manually drafted using mylar bases and ink drafting pens. Map publishing required a tedious process of scribing, color peel-coat preparation, typesetting, and photo-laboratory work. Beginning in the 1990s, inexpensive computing, display capability and user-friendly illustration software allowed maps to be drawn using digital tools rather than pen and ink, and mylar bases became obsolete

First-Principles Definition and Measurement of Planetary Electromagnetic-Energy Budget

Science.gov (United States)

Mishchenko, Michael I.; Lock, James A.; Lacis, Andrew A.; Travis, Larry D.; Cairns, Brian

2016-01-01

The imperative to quantify the Earths electromagnetic-energy budget with an extremely high accuracy has been widely recognized but has never been formulated in the framework of fundamental physics. In this paper we give a first-principles definition of the planetary electromagnetic-energy budget using the Poynting- vector formalism and discuss how it can, in principle, be measured. Our derivation is based on an absolute minimum of theoretical assumptions, is free of outdated notions of phenomenological radiometry, and naturally leads to the conceptual formulation of an instrument called the double hemispherical cavity radiometer (DHCR). The practical measurement of the planetary energy budget would require flying a constellation of several dozen planet-orbiting satellites hosting identical well-calibrated DHCRs.

Preparing Planetary Scientists to Engage Audiences

Science.gov (United States)

Shupla, C. B.; Shaner, A. J.; Hackler, A. S.

2017-12-01

While some planetary scientists have extensive experience sharing their science with audiences, many can benefit from guidance on giving presentations or conducting activities for students. The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) provides resources and trainings to support planetary scientists in their communication efforts. Trainings have included sessions for students and early career scientists at conferences (providing opportunities for them to practice their delivery and receive feedback for their poster and oral presentations), as well as separate communication workshops on how to engage various audiences. LPI has similarly begun coaching planetary scientists to help them prepare their public presentations. LPI is also helping to connect different audiences and their requests for speakers to planetary scientists. Scientists have been key contributors in developing and conducting activities in LPI education and public events. LPI is currently working with scientists to identify and redesign short planetary science activities for scientists to use with different audiences. The activities will be tied to fundamental planetary science concepts, with basic materials and simple modifications to engage different ages and audience size and background. Input from the planetary science community on these efforts is welcome. Current results and resources, as well as future opportunities will be shared.

On the Nature, Theory, and Modeling of Atmospheric Planetary Boundary Layers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Baklanov, Alexander A.; Grisogono, Branko; Bornstein, Robert

2011-01-01

The gap between our modern understanding of planetary boundary layer physics and its decades-old representations in current operational atmospheric models is widening, which has stimulated this review of the current state of the art and an analysis of the immediate needs in boundary layer theory......, measurements, and modeling....

On-Orbit Planetary Science Laboratories for Simulating Surface Conditions of Planets and Small Bodies

Science.gov (United States)

Thangavelautham, J.; Asphaug, E.; Schwartz, S.

2017-02-01

Our work has identified the use of on-orbit centrifuge science laboratories as a key enabler towards low-cost, fast-track physical simulation of off-world environments for future planetary science missions.

Planetary Data Archiving Plan at JAXA

Science.gov (United States)

Shinohara, Iku; Kasaba, Yasumasa; Yamamoto, Yukio; Abe, Masanao; Okada, Tatsuaki; Imamura, Takeshi; Sobue, Shinichi; Takashima, Takeshi; Terazono, Jun-Ya

After the successful rendezvous of Hayabusa with the small-body planet Itokawa, and the successful launch of Kaguya to the moon, Japanese planetary community has gotten their own and full-scale data. However, at this moment, these datasets are only available from the data sites managed by each mission team. The databases are individually constructed in the different formats, and the user interface of these data sites is not compatible with foreign databases. To improve the usability of the planetary archives at JAXA and to enable the international data exchange smooth, we are investigating to make a new planetary database. Within a coming decade, Japan will have fruitful datasets in the planetary science field, Venus (Planet-C), Mercury (BepiColombo), and several missions in planning phase (small-bodies). In order to strongly assist the international scientific collaboration using these mission archive data, the planned planetary data archive at JAXA should be managed in an unified manner and the database should be constructed in the international planetary database standard style. In this presentation, we will show the current status and future plans of the planetary data archiving at JAXA.

Planetary Geologic Mapping Handbook - 2010. Appendix

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, K. L.; Skinner, J. A., Jr.; Hare, T. M.

2010-01-01

Geologic maps present, in an historical context, fundamental syntheses of interpretations of the materials, landforms, structures, and processes that characterize planetary surfaces and shallow subsurfaces. Such maps also provide a contextual framework for summarizing and evaluating thematic research for a given region or body. In planetary exploration, for example, geologic maps are used for specialized investigations such as targeting regions of interest for data collection and for characterizing sites for landed missions. Whereas most modern terrestrial geologic maps are constructed from regional views provided by remote sensing data and supplemented in detail by field-based observations and measurements, planetary maps have been largely based on analyses of orbital photography. For planetary bodies in particular, geologic maps commonly represent a snapshot of a surface, because they are based on available information at a time when new data are still being acquired. Thus the field of planetary geologic mapping has been evolving rapidly to embrace the use of new data and modern technology and to accommodate the growing needs of planetary exploration. Planetary geologic maps have been published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) since 1962. Over this time, numerous maps of several planetary bodies have been prepared at a variety of scales and projections using the best available image and topographic bases. Early geologic map bases commonly consisted of hand-mosaicked photographs or airbrushed shaded-relief views and geologic linework was manually drafted using mylar bases and ink drafting pens. Map publishing required a tedious process of scribing, color peel-coat preparation, typesetting, and photo-laboratory work. Beginning in the 1990s, inexpensive computing, display capability and user-friendly illustration software allowed maps to be drawn using digital tools rather than pen and ink, and mylar bases became obsolete. Terrestrial geologic maps published by

Kinematics of galactic planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kiosa, M.I.; Khromov, G.S.

1979-01-01

The classical method of determining the components of the solar motion relative to the centroid of the system of planetary nebulae with known radial velocities is investigated. It is shown that this method is insensitive to random errors in the radial velocities and that low accuracy in determining the coordinates of the solar apex and motion results from the insufficient number of planetaries with measured radial velocities. The planetary nebulae are found not to satisfy well the law of differential galactic rotation with circular orbits. This is attributed to the elongation of their galactic orbits. A method for obtaining the statistical parallax of planetary nebulae is considered, and the parallax calculated from the tau components of their proper motion is shown to be the most reliable

Improving accessibility and discovery of ESA planetary data through the new planetary science archive

Science.gov (United States)

Macfarlane, A. J.; Docasal, R.; Rios, C.; Barbarisi, I.; Saiz, J.; Vallejo, F.; Besse, S.; Arviset, C.; Barthelemy, M.; De Marchi, G.; Fraga, D.; Grotheer, E.; Heather, D.; Lim, T.; Martinez, S.; Vallat, C.

2018-01-01

The Planetary Science Archive (PSA) is the European Space Agency's (ESA) repository of science data from all planetary science and exploration missions. The PSA provides access to scientific data sets through various interfaces at http://psa.esa.int. Mostly driven by the evolution of the PDS standards which all new ESA planetary missions shall follow and the need to update the interfaces to the archive, the PSA has undergone an important re-engineering. In order to maximise the scientific exploitation of ESA's planetary data holdings, significant improvements have been made by utilising the latest technologies and implementing widely recognised open standards. To facilitate users in handling and visualising the many products stored in the archive which have spatial data associated, the new PSA supports Geographical Information Systems (GIS) by implementing the standards approved by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The modernised PSA also attempts to increase interoperability with the international community by implementing recognised planetary science specific protocols such as the PDAP (Planetary Data Access Protocol) and EPN-TAP (EuroPlanet-Table Access Protocol). In this paper we describe some of the methods by which the archive may be accessed and present the challenges that are being faced in consolidating data sets of the older PDS3 version of the standards with the new PDS4 deliveries into a single data model mapping to ensure transparent access to the data for users and services whilst maintaining a high performance.

Planetary Magnetism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Russell, C.T.

1980-01-01

Planetary spacecraft have now probed the magnetic fields of all the terrestrial planets, the moon, Jupiter, and Saturn. These measurements reveal that dynamos are active in at least four of the planets, Mercury, the earth, Jupiter, and Saturn but that Venus and Mars appear to have at most only very weak planetary magnetic fields. The moon may have once possessed an internal dynamo, for the surface rocks are magnetized. The large satellites of the outer solar system are candidates for dynamo action in addition to the large planets themselves. Of these satellites the one most likely to generate its own internal magnetic field is Io

Planetary mass function and planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Dominik, M.

2011-02-01

With planets orbiting stars, a planetary mass function should not be seen as a low-mass extension of the stellar mass function, but a proper formalism needs to take care of the fact that the statistical properties of planet populations are linked to the properties of their respective host stars. This can be accounted for by describing planet populations by means of a differential planetary mass-radius-orbit function, which together with the fraction of stars with given properties that are orbited by planets and the stellar mass function allows the derivation of all statistics for any considered sample. These fundamental functions provide a framework for comparing statistics that result from different observing techniques and campaigns which all have their very specific selection procedures and detection efficiencies. Moreover, recent results both from gravitational microlensing campaigns and radial-velocity surveys of stars indicate that planets tend to cluster in systems rather than being the lonely child of their respective parent star. While planetary multiplicity in an observed system becomes obvious with the detection of several planets, its quantitative assessment however comes with the challenge to exclude the presence of further planets. Current exoplanet samples begin to give us first hints at the population statistics, whereas pictures of planet parameter space in its full complexity call for samples that are 2-4 orders of magnitude larger. In order to derive meaningful statistics, however, planet detection campaigns need to be designed in such a way that well-defined fully deterministic target selection, monitoring and detection criteria are applied. The probabilistic nature of gravitational microlensing makes this technique an illustrative example of all the encountered challenges and uncertainties.

Origins of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona

Science.gov (United States)

Cruikshank, Dale P.; Hartmann, William K.

2014-11-01

The roots of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) extend deep into the rich fabric of G. P. Kuiper’s view of the Earth as a planet and planetary systems as expected companions to most stars, as well as the post-war emergent technology of infrared detectors suitable for astronomy. These concepts and events began with Kuiper’s theoretical work at Yerkes Observatory on the origin of the Solar System, his discovery of two planetary satellites and observational work with his near-infrared spectrometer on the then-new McDonald 82-inch telescope in the mid- to late-1940s. A grant for the production of a photographic atlas of the Moon in the mid-1950s enabled him to assemble the best existing images of the Moon and acquire new photographs. This brought E. A. Whitaker and D. W. G. Arthur to Yerkes. Others who joined in the lunar work were geologist Carl S. Huzzen and grad student E. P. Moore, as well as undergrad summer students A. B. Binder and D. P. Cruikshank (both in 1958). The Atlas was published in 1959, and work began on an orthographic lunar atlas. Kuiper’s view of planetary science as an interdisciplinary enterprise encompassing astronomy, geology, and atmospheric physics inspired his vision of a research institution and an academic curriculum tuned to the combination of all the scientific disciplines embraced in a comprehensive study of the planets. Arrangements were made with the University of Arizona (UA) to establish LPL in affiliation with the widely recognized Inst. of Atmospheric Physics. Kuiper moved to the UA in late 1960, taking the lunar experts, graduate student T. C. Owen (planetary atmospheres), and associate B. M. Middlehurst along. G. van Biesbroeck also joined the migration to Tucson; Binder and Cruikshank followed along as new grad students. Astronomy grad student W. K. Hartmann came into the academic program at UA and the research group at LPL in 1961. Senior faculty affiliating with LPL in the earliest years were T. Gehrels, A. B

Planetary Simulation Chambers bring Mars to laboratory studies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mateo-Marti, E.

2016-07-01

Although space missions provide fundamental and unique knowledge for planetary exploration, they are always costly and extremely time-consuming. Due to the obvious technical and economical limitations of in-situ planetary exploration, laboratory simulations are among the most feasible research options for making advances in planetary exploration. Therefore, laboratory simulations of planetary environments are a necessary and complementary option to expensive space missions. Simulation chambers are economical, more versatile, and allow for a higher number of experiments than space missions. Laboratory-based facilities are able to mimic the conditions found in the atmospheres and on the surfaces of a majority of planetary objects. Number of relevant applications in Mars planetary exploration will be described in order to provide an understanding about the potential and flexibility of planetary simulation chambers systems: mainly, stability and presence of certain minerals on Mars surface; and microorganisms potential habitability under planetary environmental conditions would be studied. Therefore, simulation chambers will be a promising tools and necessary platform to design future planetary space mission and to validate in-situ measurements from orbital or rover observations. (Author)

Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph

Science.gov (United States)

Clampin, M.

2007-06-01

The Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC) is a proposed NASA Discovery mission to image and characterize extrasolar giant planets in orbits with semi-major axes between 2 and 10 AU. EPIC will provide insights into the physical nature of a variety of planets in other solar systems complimenting radial velocity (RV) and astrometric planet searches. It will detect and characterize the atmospheres of planets identified by radial velocity surveys, determine orbital inclinations and masses, characterize the atmospheres around A and F type stars which cannot be found with RV techniques, and observe the inner spatial structure and colors of debris disks. The robust mission design is simple and flexible ensuring mission success while minimizing cost and risk. The science payload consists of a heritage optical telescope assembly (OTA), and visible nulling coronagraph (VNC) instrument.

Detection of C60 and C70 in a young planetary nebula.

Science.gov (United States)

Cami, Jan; Bernard-Salas, Jeronimo; Peeters, Els; Malek, Sarah Elizabeth

2010-09-03

In recent decades, a number of molecules and diverse dust features have been identified by astronomical observations in various environments. Most of the dust that determines the physical and chemical characteristics of the interstellar medium is formed in the outflows of asymptotic giant branch stars and is further processed when these objects become planetary nebulae. We studied the environment of Tc 1, a peculiar planetary nebula whose infrared spectrum shows emission from cold and neutral C60 and C70. The two molecules amount to a few percent of the available cosmic carbon in this region. This finding indicates that if the conditions are right, fullerenes can and do form efficiently in space.

The Planetary Science Archive (PSA): Exploration and discovery of scientific datasets from ESA's planetary missions

Science.gov (United States)

Vallat, C.; Besse, S.; Barbarisi, I.; Arviset, C.; De Marchi, G.; Barthelemy, M.; Coia, D.; Costa, M.; Docasal, R.; Fraga, D.; Heather, D. J.; Lim, T.; Macfarlane, A.; Martinez, S.; Rios, C.; Vallejo, F.; Said, J.

2017-09-01

The Planetary Science Archive (PSA) is the European Space Agency's (ESA) repository of science data from all planetary science and exploration missions. The PSA provides access to scientific datasets through various interfaces at http://psa.esa.int. All datasets are scientifically peer-reviewed by independent scientists, and are compliant with the Planetary Data System (PDS) standards. The PSA has started to implement a number of significant improvements, mostly driven by the evolution of the PDS standards, and the growing need for better interfaces and advanced applications to support science exploitation.

Teaching Planetary Sciences at the Universidad del País Vasco in Spain: The Aula Espazio Gela and its Master in Space Science and Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Hueso, R.; Sanchez-Lavega, A.; Pérez-Hoyos, S.

2011-12-01

Planetary science is a highly multidisciplinary field traditionally associated to Astronomy, Physics or Earth Sciences Departments. Spanish universities do not generally offer planetary sciences courses but some departments give courses associated to studies on Astronomy or Geology. We show a different perspective obtained at the Engeneering School at the Universidad del País Vasco in Bilbao, Spain, which offers a Master in Space Science and Technology to graduates in Engineering or Physics. Here we detail the experience acquired in two years of this master which offers several planetary science courses: Solar System Physics, Astronomy, Planetary Atmospheres & Space Weather together with more technical courses. The university also owns an urban observatory in the Engineering School which is used for practical exercises and student projects. The planetary science courses have also resulted in motivating part of the students to do their master thesis in scientific subjects in planetary sciences. Since the students have very different backgrounds their master theses have been quite different: From writing open software tools to detect bolides in video observations of Jupiter atmosphere to the photometric calibration and scientific use or their own Jupiter and Saturn images or the study of atmospheric motions of the Venus' South Polar Vortex using data from the Venus Express spacecraft. As a result of this interaction with the students some of them have been engaged to initiate Ph.D.s in planetary sciences enlarging a relative small field in Spain. Acknowledgements: The Master in Space Science and Technology is offered by the Aula Espazio Gela at the Universidad del País Vasco Engineer School in Bilbao, Spain and is funded by Diputación Foral de Bizkaia.

Plate tectonics and planetary habitability: current status and future challenges.

Science.gov (United States)

Korenaga, Jun

2012-07-01

Plate tectonics is one of the major factors affecting the potential habitability of a terrestrial planet. The physics of plate tectonics is, however, still far from being complete, leading to considerable uncertainty when discussing planetary habitability. Here, I summarize recent developments on the evolution of plate tectonics on Earth, which suggest a radically new view on Earth dynamics: convection in the mantle has been speeding up despite its secular cooling, and the operation of plate tectonics has been facilitated throughout Earth's history by the gradual subduction of water into an initially dry mantle. The role of plate tectonics in planetary habitability through its influence on atmospheric evolution is still difficult to quantify, and, to this end, it will be vital to better understand a coupled core-mantle-atmosphere system in the context of solar system evolution. © 2012 New York Academy of Sciences.

Number of planetary nebulae in our galaxy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alloin, D.; Cruz-Gonzalez, C.; Peimbert, M.

1976-01-01

It is found that the contribution to the ionization of the interstellar medium due to planetary nebulae is from one or two orders of magnitude smaller than that due to O stars. The mass return to the interstellar medium due to planetary nebulae is investigated, and the birth rate of white dwarfs and planetary nebulae are compared. Several arguments are given against the possibility that the infrared sources detected by Becklin and Neugebauer in the direction of the galactic center are planetary nebulae

Reassessment of planetary protection requirements for Venus missions

Science.gov (United States)

Szostak, J.; Riemer, R.; Smith, D.; Rummel, J.

In 2005 the US Space Studies Board SSB was asked by NASA to reexamine the planetary protection requirements for spacecraft missions to Venus In particular the SSB was tasked to 1 Assess the surface and atmospheric environments of Venus with respect to their ability to support the survival and growth of Earth-origin microbial contamination by future spacecraft missions and 2 Provide recommendations related to planetary protection issues associated with the return to Earth of samples from Venus The task group established by the SSB to address these issues assessed the known aspects of the present-day environment of Venus and the ability of Earth organisms to survive in the physical and chemical conditions found on the planet s surface or in the clouds in the planet s atmosphere As a result of its deliberations the task group found compelling evidence against there being significant dangers of forward or reverse biological contamination as a result of contact between a spacecraft and the surface of Venus or the clouds in the atmosphere of Venus regardless of the current unknowns The task group did however conclude that Venus is a body of interest relative to the process of chemical evolution and the origin of life As a result the task group endorses NASA s current policy of subjecting missions to Venus to the requirements imposed by planetary protection Category II rather than the less restrictive Category I recommended by COSPAR

of Planetary Nebulae III. NGC 6781

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hugo E. Schwarz

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Continuing our series of papers on the three-dimensional (3D structures and accurate distances to Planetary Nebulae (PNe, we present our study of the planetary nebula NGC6781. For this object we construct a 3D photoionization model and, using the constraints provided by observational data from the literature we determine the detailed 3D structure of the nebula, the physical parameters of the ionizing source and the first precise distance. The procedure consists in simultaneously fitting all the observed emission line morphologies, integrated intensities and the two-dimensional (2D density map from the [SII] (sulfur II line ratios to the parameters generated by the model, and in an iterative way obtain the best fit for the central star parameters and the distance to NGC6781, obtaining values of 950±143 pc (parsec – astronomic distance unit and 385 LΘ (solar luminosity for the distance and luminosity of the central star respectively. Using theoretical evolutionary tracks of intermediate and low mass stars, we derive the mass of the central star of NGC6781 and its progenitor to be 0.60±0.03MΘ (solar mass and 1.5±0.5MΘ respectively.

Technology under Planetary Protection Research (PPR)

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Planetary protection involves preventing biological contamination on both outbound and sample return missions to other planetary bodies. Numerous areas of research...

Frontiers in Theoretical and Applied Physics

CERN Document Server

2017-01-01

The aim of the conference is to provide a forum for physicists, astronomers, and space and material scientists from around the world to present the latest developments in the various dynamic fields of physics. Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Condensed Matter Physics, Material Science and Nanophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Mathematical Physics, Astrophysics, Space and Planetary Physics

The population of planetary nebulae near the Galactic Centre: chemical abundances

Science.gov (United States)

Mollá, M.; Cavichia, O.; Costa, R. D. D.; Maciel, W. J.

2017-10-01

In this work, we report physical parameters and abundances derived for a sample of 15 high extinction planetary nebulae located in the inner 2° of the Galactic bulge, based on low dispersion spectroscopy secured at the SOAR telescope using the Goodman spectrograph. The new data allow us to extend our database including older, weaker objects that are at the faint end of the planetary nebulae luminosity function. The data provide chemical compositions for PNe located in this region of the bulge to explore the chemical enrichment history of the central region of the Galactic bulge. The results show that the abundances of our sample are skewed to higher metallicities than previous data in the outer regions of the bulge. This can indicate a faster chemical enrichment taking place at the Galactic centre.

Virtual reality and planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

McGreevy, Michael W.

Exploring planetary environments is central to NASA's missions and goals. A new computing technology called Virtual Reality has much to offer in support of planetary exploration. This technology augments and extends human presence within computer-generated and remote spatial environments. Historically, NASA has been a leader in many of the fundamental concepts and technologies that comprise Virtual Reality. Indeed, Ames Research Center has a central role in the development of this rapidly emerging approach to using computers. This ground breaking work has inspired researchers in academia, industry, and the military. Further, NASA's leadership in this technology has spun off new businesses, has caught the attention of the international business community, and has generated several years of positive international media coverage. In the future, Virtual Reality technology will enable greatly improved human-machine interactions for more productive planetary surface exploration. Perhaps more importantly, Virtual Reality technology will democratize the experience of planetary exploration and thereby broaden understanding of, and support for, this historic enterprise.

Virtual reality and planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Mcgreevy, Michael W.

1992-01-01

Exploring planetary environments is central to NASA's missions and goals. A new computing technology called Virtual Reality has much to offer in support of planetary exploration. This technology augments and extends human presence within computer-generated and remote spatial environments. Historically, NASA has been a leader in many of the fundamental concepts and technologies that comprise Virtual Reality. Indeed, Ames Research Center has a central role in the development of this rapidly emerging approach to using computers. This ground breaking work has inspired researchers in academia, industry, and the military. Further, NASA's leadership in this technology has spun off new businesses, has caught the attention of the international business community, and has generated several years of positive international media coverage. In the future, Virtual Reality technology will enable greatly improved human-machine interactions for more productive planetary surface exploration. Perhaps more importantly, Virtual Reality technology will democratize the experience of planetary exploration and thereby broaden understanding of, and support for, this historic enterprise.

Spectral Feature Analysis of Minerals and Planetary Surfaces in an Introductory Planetary Science Course

Science.gov (United States)

Urban, Michael J.

2013-01-01

Using an ALTA II reflectance spectrometer, the USGS digital spectral library, graphs of planetary spectra, and a few mineral hand samples, one can teach how light can be used to study planets and moons. The author created the hands-on, inquiry-based activity for an undergraduate planetary science course consisting of freshman to senior level…

NASA Planetary Science Summer School: Preparing the Next Generation of Planetary Mission Leaders

Science.gov (United States)

Lowes, L. L.; Budney, C. J.; Sohus, A.; Wheeler, T.; Urban, A.; NASA Planetary Science Summer School Team

2011-12-01

Sponsored by NASA's Planetary Science Division, and managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the Planetary Science Summer School prepares the next generation of engineers and scientists to participate in future solar system exploration missions. Participants learn the mission life cycle, roles of scientists and engineers in a mission environment, mission design interconnectedness and trade-offs, and the importance of teamwork. For this professional development opportunity, applicants are sought who have a strong interest and experience in careers in planetary exploration, and who are science and engineering post-docs, recent PhDs, and doctoral students, and faculty teaching such students. Disciplines include planetary science, geoscience, geophysics, environmental science, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering, and materials science. Participants are selected through a competitive review process, with selections based on the strength of the application and advisor's recommendation letter. Under the mentorship of a lead engineer (Dr. Charles Budney), students select, design, and develop a mission concept in response to the NASA New Frontiers Announcement of Opportunity. They develop their mission in the JPL Advanced Projects Design Team (Team X) environment, which is a cross-functional multidisciplinary team of professional engineers that utilizes concurrent engineering methodologies to complete rapid design, analysis and evaluation of mission concept designs. About 36 students participate each year, divided into two summer sessions. In advance of an intensive week-long session in the Project Design Center at JPL, students select the mission and science goals during a series of six weekly WebEx/telecons, and develop a preliminary suite of instrumentation and a science traceability matrix. Students assume both a science team and a mission development role with JPL Team X mentors. Once at JPL, students participate in a series of Team X project design sessions

VESPA: developing the planetary science Virtual Observatory in H2020

Science.gov (United States)

Erard, Stéphane; Cecconi, Baptiste; Le Sidaner, Pierre; Capria, Teresa; Rossi, Angelo Pio

2016-04-01

The Europlanet H2020 programme will develop a research infrastructure in Horizon 2020. The programme includes a follow-on to the FP7 activity aimed at developing the Planetary Science Virtual Observatory (VO). This activity is called VESPA, which stands for Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access. Building on the IDIS activity of Europlanet FP7, VESPA will distribute more data, will improve the connected tools and infrastructure, and will help developing a community of both users and data providers. One goal of the Europlanet FP7 programme was to set the basis for a European Virtual Observatory in Planetary Science. A prototype has been set up during FP7, most of the activity being dedicated to the definition of standards to handle data in this field. The aim was to facilitate searches in big archives as well as sparse databases, to make on-line data access and visualization possible, and to allow small data providers to make their data available in an interoperable environment with minimum effort. This system makes intensive use of studies and developments led in Astronomy (IVOA), Solar Science (HELIO), plasma physics (SPASE), and space archive services (IPDA). It remains consistent with extensions of IVOA standards.

Confirmation and characterization of young planetary companions hidden in the HST NICMOS archive

Science.gov (United States)

Pueyo, Laurent

2013-10-01

We propose to conduct WFC3 high contrast observations of six faint planetary candidates orbiting young {1 to 100 Myrs} stars identified in archival HST NICMOS coronagraphic data as part of our team's program AR-12652. Such rare objects are of the utmost importance to comparative exo-planetology as their physical properties reflect the initial conditions of still poorly constrained planetary formation mechanisms. Moreover directly imaged systems are precious artifacts in the expanding exo-planetary treasure trove as they are readily available for spectroscopic characterization. Our statistical analysis, which combines population synthesis models and empirical inspections of the entire NICMOS field of view for all sources observed in coronaraphic mode, almost guarantees that one of these six faint candidates is associated with its putative host star. We will conduct our observation in four near infrared filter, F125W, F160W to establish the baseline luminosity of our candidates and in F127M and F139M in order to probe the depth their water absorption features, characteristic of substellar /exo-planetary like atmospheres. Because of the youth of our targets, this program, which only requires a modest 12 HST orbits, will almost certainly identify and image a young or adolescent exo-planet.

The NASA Planetary Data System Roadmap Study for 2017 - 2026

Science.gov (United States)

McNutt, R. L., Jr.; Gaddis, L. R.; Law, E.; Beyer, R. A.; Crombie, M. K.; Ebel, D. S. S.; Ghosh, A.; Grayzeck, E.; Morgan, T. H.; Paganelli, F.; Raugh, A.; Stein, T.; Tiscareno, M. S.; Weber, R. C.; Banks, M.; Powell, K.

2017-12-01

NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) is the formal archive of >1.2 petabytes of data from planetary exploration, science, and research. Initiated in 1989 to address an overall lack of attention to mission data documentation, access, and archiving, the PDS has evolved into an online collection of digital data managed and served by a federation of six science discipline nodes and two technical support nodes. Several ad hoc mission-oriented data nodes also provide complex data interfaces and access for the duration of their missions. The recent Planetary Data System Roadmap Study for 2017 to 2026 involved 15 planetary science community members who collectively prepared a report summarizing the results of an intensive examination of the current state of the PDS and its organization, management, practices, and data holdings (https://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/roadmap/PlanetaryDataSystemRMS17-26_20jun17.pdf). The report summarizes the history of the PDS, its functions and characteristics, and how it has evolved to its present form; also included are extensive references and documentary appendices. The report recognizes that as a complex, evolving, archive system, the PDS must constantly respond to new pressures and opportunities. The report provides details on the challenges now facing the PDS, 19 detailed findings, suggested remediations, and a summary of what the future may hold for planetary data archiving. The findings cover topics such as user needs and expectations, data usability and discoverability (i.e., metadata, data access, documentation, and training), tools and file formats, use of current information technologies, and responses to increases in data volume, variety, complexity, and number of data providers. In addition, the study addresses the possibility of archiving software, laboratory data, and measurements of physical samples. Finally, the report discusses the current structure and governance of the PDS and its impact on how archive growth, technology, and new

X-ray observations of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Apparao, K.M.V.; Tarafdar, S.P.

1990-01-01

The Einstein satellite was used to observe 19 planetary nebulae and X-ray emission was detected from four planetary nebulae. The EXOSAT satellite observed 12 planetary nebulae and five new sources were detected. An Einstein HRI observation shows that NGC 246 is a point source, implying that the X-rays are from the central star. Most of the detected planetary nebulae are old and the X-rays are observed during the later stage of planetary nebulae/central star evolution, when the nebula has dispersed sufficiently and/or when the central star gets old and the heavy elements in the atmosphere settle down due to gravitation. However in two cases where the central star is sufficiently luminous X-rays were observed, even though they were young nebulae; the X-radiation ionizes the nebula to a degree, to allow negligible absorption in the nebula. Temperature T x is obtained using X-ray flux and optical magnitude and assuming the spectrum is blackbody. T x agrees with Zanstra temperature obtained from optical Helium lines. (author)

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF THE 0.94-DAY PERIOD TRANSITING PLANETARY SYSTEM WASP-18

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Southworth, John; Anderson, D. R.; Maxted, P. F. L.; Hinse, T. C.; Dominik, M.; Mathiasen, M.; Browne, P.; Glitrup, M.; Joergensen, U. G.; Harpsoee, K.; Liebig, C.; Maier, G.; Bozza, V.; Calchi Novati, S.; Mancini, L.; Burgdorf, M.; Dreizler, S.; Hessman, F.; Hundertmark, M.; Finet, F.

2009-01-01

We present high-precision photometry of five consecutive transits of WASP-18, an extrasolar planetary system with one of the shortest orbital periods known. Through the use of telescope defocusing we achieve a photometric precision of 0.47-0.83 mmag per observation over complete transit events. The data are analyzed using the JKTEBOP code and three different sets of stellar evolutionary models. We find the mass and radius of the planet to be M b = 10.43 ± 0.30 ± 0.24 M Jup and R b = 1.165 ± 0.055 ± 0.014 R Jup (statistical and systematic errors), respectively. The systematic errors in the orbital separation and the stellar and planetary masses, arising from the use of theoretical predictions, are of a similar size to the statistical errors and set a limit on our understanding of the WASP-18 system. We point out that seven of the nine known massive transiting planets (M b > 3 M Jup ) have eccentric orbits, whereas significant orbital eccentricity has been detected for only four of the 46 less-massive planets. This may indicate that there are two different populations of transiting planets, but could also be explained by observational biases. Further radial velocity observations of low-mass planets will make it possible to choose between these two scenarios.

The NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) Network: A Key Resource for Accessing and Using Planetary Spatial Data

Science.gov (United States)

Hagerty, J. J.

2017-12-01

The role of the NASA Regional Planetary Image Facility (RPIF) Network is evolving as new science-ready spatial data products continue to be created and as key historical planetary data sets are digitized. Specifically, the RPIF Network is poised to serve specialized knowledge and services in a user-friendly manner that removes most barriers to locating, accessing, and exploiting planetary spatial data, thus providing a critical data access role within a spatial data infrastructure. The goal of the Network is to provide support and training to a broad audience of planetary spatial data users. In an effort to meet the planetary science community's evolving needs, we are focusing on the following objectives: Maintain and improve the delivery of historical data accumulated over the past four decades so as not to lose critical, historical information. This is being achieved by systematically digitizing fragile materials, allowing increased access and preserving them at the same time. Help users locate, access, visualize, and exploit planetary science data. Many of the facilities have begun to establish Guest User Facilities that allow researchers to use and/or be trained on GIS equipment and other specialized tools like Socet Set/GXP photogrammetry workstations for generating digital elevation maps. Improve the connection between the Network nodes while also leveraging the unique resources of each node. To achieve this goal, each facility is developing and sharing searchable databases of their collections, including robust metadata in a standards compliant way. Communicate more effectively and regularly with the planetary science community in an effort to make potential users aware of resources and services provided by the Network, while also engaging community members in discussions about community needs. Provide a regional resource for the science community, colleges, universities, museums, media, and the public to access planetary data. Introduce new strategies for

Classification of ISO SWS 01 spectra of proto-planetary nebulae: a search for precursors of planetary nebulae with [WR] central stars

OpenAIRE

Szczerba, R.; Stasi{ń}ska, G.; Siódmiak, N.; Górny, S. K.

2002-01-01

We have analyzed ISO SWS 01 observations for 61 proto-planetary nebulae candidates and classified their spectra according to their dominant chemistry. On the basis of our classification and the more general classification of SWS 01 spectra by Kraemer et al. (2002) we discuss the connection between proto-planetary nebulae candidates and planetary nebulae, with emphasis on possible precursors of planetary nebulae with [WR] central stars.

IMPEx : enabling model/observational data comparison in planetary plasma sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Génot, V.; Khodachenko, M.; Kallio, E. J.; Al-Ubaidi, T.; Alexeev, I. I.; Topf, F.; Gangloff, M.; André, N.; Bourrel, N.; Modolo, R.; Hess, S.; Perez-Suarez, D.; Belenkaya, E. S.; Kalegaev, V.

2013-09-01

The FP7 IMPEx infrastructure, whose general goal is to encourage and facilitate inter-comparison between observational and model data in planetary plasma sciences, is now established for 2 years. This presentation will focus on a tour of the different achievements which occurred during this period. Within the project, data originate from multiple sources : large observational databases (CDAWeb, AMDA at CDPP, CLWeb at IRAP), simulation databases for hybrid and MHD codes (FMI, LATMOS), planetary magnetic field models database and online services (SINP). Each of these databases proposes dedicated access to their models and runs (HWA@FMI, LATHYS@LATMOS, SMDC@SINP). To gather this large data ensemble, IMPEx offers a distributed framework in which these data may be visualized, analyzed, and shared thanks to interoperable tools; they comprise of AMDA - an online space physics analysis tool -, 3DView - a tool for data visualization in 3D planetary context -, and CLWeb - an online space physics visualization tool. A simulation data model, based on SPASE, has been designed to ease data exchange within the infrastructure. On the communication point of view, the VO paradigm has been retained and the architecture is based on web services and the IVOA protocol SAMP. The presentation will focus on how the tools may be operated synchronously to manipulate these heterogeneous data sets. Use cases based on in-flight missions and associated model runs will be proposed for the demonstration. Finally the motivation and functionalities of the future IMPEx portal will be exposed. As requirements to and potentialities of joining the IMPEx infrastructure will be shown, the presentation could be seen as an invitation to other modeling teams in the community which may be interested to promote their results via IMPEx.

An ecological compass for planetary engineering.

Science.gov (United States)

Haqq-Misra, Jacob

2012-10-01

Proposals to address present-day global warming through the large-scale application of technology to the climate system, known as geoengineering, raise questions of environmental ethics relevant to the broader issue of planetary engineering. These questions have also arisen in the scientific literature as discussions of how to terraform a planet such as Mars or Venus in order to make it more Earth-like and habitable. Here we draw on insights from terraforming and environmental ethics to develop a two-axis comparative tool for ethical frameworks that considers the intrinsic or instrumental value placed upon organisms, environments, planetary systems, or space. We apply this analysis to the realm of planetary engineering, such as terraforming on Mars or geoengineering on present-day Earth, as well as to questions of planetary protection and space exploration.

Interactive investigations into planetary interiors

Science.gov (United States)

Rose, I.

2015-12-01

Many processes in Earth science are difficult to observe or visualize due to the large timescales and lengthscales over which they operate. The dynamics of planetary mantles are particularly challenging as we cannot even look at the rocks involved. As a result, much teaching material on mantle dynamics relies on static images and cartoons, many of which are decades old. Recent improvements in computing power and technology (largely driven by game and web development) have allowed for advances in real-time physics simulations and visualizations, but these have been slow to affect Earth science education.Here I demonstrate a teaching tool for mantle convection and seismology which solves the equations for conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in real time, allowing users make changes to the simulation and immediately see the effects. The user can ask and answer questions about what happens when they add heat in one place, or take it away from another place, or increase the temperature at the base of the mantle. They can also pause the simulation, and while it is paused, create and visualize seismic waves traveling through the mantle. These allow for investigations into and discussions about plate tectonics, earthquakes, hot spot volcanism, and planetary cooling.The simulation is rendered to the screen using OpenGL, and is cross-platform. It can be run as a native application for maximum performance, but it can also be embedded in a web browser for easy deployment and portability.

On planetary nebulae as sources of carbon dust: Infrared emission from planetary nebulae of the galactic halo

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dinerstein, H.L.; Lester, D.F.

1990-01-01

Researchers examine here the characteristics of the infrared emission from the four planetary nebulae which are believed on the basis of their low overall metallicities to belong to the halo population. These nebulae are of particular interest because they are the most metal-poor ionized nebulae known in our Galaxy, and offer the opportunity to probe possible dependences of the dust properties on nebular composition. Researchers present fluxes extracted from co-addition of the IRAS data, as well as ground-based near infrared measurements. Each of the four halo objects, including the planetary nebula in the globular cluster M15, is detected in at least one infrared band. Researchers compare the estimated infrared excesses of these nebulae (IRE, the ratio of measured infrared power to the power available in the form of resonantly-trapped Lyman alpha photons) to those of disk planetary nebulae with similar densities but more normal abundances. Three of the halo planetaries have IRE values similar to those of the disk nebulae, despite the fact that their Fe- and Si-peak gas phase abundances are factors of 10 to 100 lower. However, these halo nebulae have normal or elevated C/H ratios, due to nuclear processing and mixing in their red giant progenitors. Unlike the other halo planetaries, DDDM1 is deficient in carbon as well as in the other light metals. This nebula has a substantially lower IRE than the other halo planetaries, and may be truly dust efficient. Researchers suggest that the deficiency is due to a lack of the raw material for producing carbon-based grains, and that the main bulk constituent of the dust in these planetary nebulae is carbon

Planetary X-ray studies: past, present and future

Science.gov (United States)

Branduardi-Raymont, Graziella

2016-07-01

Our solar system is a fascinating physics laboratory and X-ray observations are now firmly established as a powerful diagnostic tool of the multiple processes taking place in it. The science that X-rays reveal encompasses solar, space plasma and planetary physics, and the response of bodies in the solar system to the impact of the Sun's activity. This talk will review what we know from past observations and what we expect to learn in the short, medium and long term. Observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton have demonstrated that the origin of Jupiter's bright soft X-ray aurorae lies in the Charge eXchange (CX) process, likely to involve the interaction with atmospheric neutrals of local magnetospheric ions, as well as those carried in the solar wind. At higher energies electron bremsstrahlung is thought to be the X-ray emitting mechanism, while the whole planetary disk acts as a mirror for the solar X-ray flux via Thomson and fluorescent scattering. This 'X-ray mirror' phenomenon is all that is observed from Saturn's disk, which otherwise lacks X-ray auroral features. The Earth's X-ray aurora is bright and variable and mostly due to electron bremsstrahlung and line emission from atmospheric species. Un-magnetised planets, Venus and Mars, do not show X-ray aurorae but display the interesting combination of mirroring the solar X-ray flux and producing X-rays by Solar Wind Charge eXchange (SWCX) in their exospheres. These processes respond to different solar stimulation (photons and solar wind plasma respectively) hence their relative contributions are seen to vary according to the Sun's output. Present and future of planetary X-ray studies are very bright. We are preparing for the arrival of the Juno mission at Jupiter this summer and for coordinated observations with Chandra and XMM-Newton on the approach and later during Juno's orbital phase. These will allow direct correlation of the local plasma conditions with the X-ray emissions and the establishment of the

Planetary rovers robotic exploration of the solar system

CERN Document Server

Ellery, Alex

2016-01-01

The increasing adoption of terrain mobility – planetary rovers – for the investigation of planetary surfaces emphasises their central importance in space exploration. This imposes a completely new set of technologies and methodologies to the design of such spacecraft – and planetary rovers are indeed, first and foremost, spacecraft. This introduces vehicle engineering, mechatronics, robotics, artificial intelligence and associated technologies to the spacecraft engineer’s repertoire of skills. Planetary Rovers is the only book that comprehensively covers these aspects of planetary rover engineering and more. The book: • discusses relevant planetary environments to rover missions, stressing the Moon and Mars; • includes a brief survey of previous rover missions; • covers rover mobility, traction and control systems; • stresses the importance of robotic vision in rovers for both navigation and science; • comprehensively covers autonomous navigation, path planning and multi-rover formations on ...

Planetary protection in the framework of the Aurora exploration program

Science.gov (United States)

Kminek, G.

The Aurora Exploration Program will give ESA new responsibilities in the field of planetary protection. Until now, ESA had only limited exposure to planetary protection from its own missions. With the proposed ExoMars and MSR missions, however, ESA will enter the realm of the highest planetary protection categories. As a consequence, the Aurora Exploration Program has initiated a number of activities in the field of planetary protection. The first and most important step was to establish a Planetary Protection Working Group (PPWG) that is advising the Exploration Program Advisory Committee (EPAC) on all matters concerning planetary protection. The main task of the PPWG is to provide recommendations regarding: Planetary protection for robotic missions to Mars; Planetary protection for a potential human mission to Mars; Review/evaluate standards & procedures for planetary protection; Identify research needs in the field of planetary protection. As a result of the PPWG deliberations, a number of activities have been initiated: Evaluation of the Microbial Diversity in SC Facilities; Working paper on legal issues of planetary protection and astrobiology; Feasibility study on a Mars Sample Return Containment Facility; Research activities on sterilization procedures; Training course on planetary protection (May, 2004); Workshop on sterilization techniques (fall 2004). In parallel to the PPWG, the Aurora Exploration Program has established an Ethical Working Group (EWG). This working group will address ethical issues related to astrobiology, planetary protection, and manned interplanetary missions. The recommendations of the working groups and the results of the R&D activities form the basis for defining planetary protection specification for Aurora mission studies, and for proposing modification and new inputs to the COSPAR planetary protection policy. Close cooperation and free exchange of relevant information with the NASA planetary protection program is strongly

An Ion-Propelled Cubesat for Planetary Defense and Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Russell, Christopher T.; Wirz, Richard; Lai, Hairong; Li, Jian-Yang; Connors, Martin

2017-04-01

Small satellites can reduce the cost of launch by riding along with other payloads on a large rocket or being launched on a small rocket, but are perceived as having limited capabilities. This perception can be at least partially overcome by innovative design, including ample in-flight propulsion. This allows achieving multiple targets and adaptive exploration. Ion propulsion has been pioneered on Deep Space 1 and honed on the long-duration, multiple-planetary body mission Dawn. Most importantly, the operation of such a mission is now well- understood, including navigation, communication, and science operations for remote sensing. We examined different mission concepts that can be used for both planetary defense and planetary science near 1 AU. Such a spacecraft would travel in the region between Venus and Mars, allowing a complete inventory of material above, including objects down to about 10m diameter to be inventoried. The ion engines could be used to approach these bodies slowly and carefully and allow the spacecraft to map debris and follow its collisional evolution throughout its orbit around the Sun, if so desired. The heritage of Dawn operations experience enables the mission to be operated inexpensively, and the engineering heritage will allow it to be operated for many trips around the Sun.

Migration-induced architectures of planetary systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Szuszkiewicz, Ewa; Podlewska-Gaca, Edyta

2012-06-01

The recent increase in number of known multi-planet systems gives a unique opportunity to study the processes responsible for planetary formation and evolution. Special attention is given to the occurrence of mean-motion resonances, because they carry important information about the history of the planetary systems. At the early stages of the evolution, when planets are still embedded in a gaseous disc, the tidal interactions between the disc and planets cause the planetary orbital migration. The convergent differential migration of two planets embedded in a gaseous disc may result in the capture into a mean-motion resonance. The orbital migration taking place during the early phases of the planetary system formation may play an important role in shaping stable planetary configurations. An understanding of this stage of the evolution will provide insight on the most frequently formed architectures, which in turn are relevant for determining the planet habitability. The aim of this paper is to present the observational properties of these planetary systems which contain confirmed or suspected resonant configurations. A complete list of known systems with such configurations is given. This list will be kept by us updated from now on and it will be a valuable reference for studying the dynamics of extrasolar systems and testing theoretical predictions concerned with the origin and the evolution of planets, which are the most plausible places for existence and development of life.

Lessons learned from planetary science archiving

Science.gov (United States)

Zender, J.; Grayzeck, E.

2006-01-01

The need for scientific archiving of past, current, and future planetary scientific missions, laboratory data, and modeling efforts is indisputable. To quote from a message by G. Santayama carved over the entrance of the US Archive in Washington DC “Those who can not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” The design, implementation, maintenance, and validation of planetary science archives are however disputed by the involved parties. The inclusion of the archives into the scientific heritage is problematic. For example, there is the imbalance between space agency requirements and institutional and national interests. The disparity of long-term archive requirements and immediate data analysis requests are significant. The discrepancy between the space missions archive budget and the effort required to design and build the data archive is large. An imbalance exists between new instrument development and existing, well-proven archive standards. The authors present their view on the problems and risk areas in the archiving concepts based on their experience acquired within NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) and ESA’s Planetary Science Archive (PSA). Individual risks and potential problem areas are discussed based on a model derived from a system analysis done upfront. The major risk for a planetary mission science archive is seen in the combination of minimal involvement by Mission Scientists and inadequate funding. The authors outline how the risks can be reduced. The paper ends with the authors view on future planetary archive implementations including the archive interoperability aspect.

The History of Planetary Exploration Using Mass Spectrometers

Science.gov (United States)

Mahaffy, Paul R.

2012-01-01

At the Planetary Probe Workshop Dr. Paul Mahaffy will give a tutorial on the history of planetary exploration using mass spectrometers. He will give an introduction to the problems and solutions that arise in making in situ measurements at planetary targets using this instrument class.

SPEX: The spectropolarimeter for planetary EXploration

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Snik, F.; Rietjens, J.H.H.; Harten, G. van; Stam, D.M.; Keller, C.U.; Smit, J.M.; Laan, E.C.; Verlaan, A.L.; Horst, R. ter; Navarro, R.; Wielinga, K.; Moon, S.G.; Voors, R.

2010-01-01

SPEX (Spectropolarimeter for Planetary EXploration) is an innovative, compact instrument for spectropolarimetry, and in particular for detecting and characterizing aerosols in planetary atmospheres. With its ∼1-liter volume it is capable of full linear spectropolarimetry, without moving parts. The

Max-Planck-Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg. Annual report 1991

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klapdor-Kleingrothaus, H.V.; Kiko, J.

1992-01-01

The Institute's activities cover basic research work in nuclear physics and particle physics and in cosmophysics. The nuclear physics department reports experimental and theoretical investigations of the structure of atomic nuclei and hadrons, including technical developments on accelerators and storage rings and work on highly charged ions, particle detectors, ion implantations, ionometry and proton-induced X-ray spectroscopy. The cosmophysics department reports studies into the formation of the planetary system, of the comets, the interstellar medium, the cosmic radiation, the extraterrestrial matter, solar neutrions, planetary atmosphere, the chemistry of the stratosphere, and archeometry. (DG) [de

The SOAPS project – Spin-orbit alignment of planetary systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hebb L.

2013-04-01

Full Text Available The wealth of information rendered by Kepler planets and planet candidates is indispensable for statistically significant studies of distinct planet populations, in both single and multiple systems. Empirical evidences suggest that Kepler's planet population shows different physical properties as compared to the bulk of known exoplanets. The SOAPS project, aims to shed light on Kepler's planets formation, their migration and architecture. By measuring v sini accurately for Kepler hosts with rotation periods measured from their high-precision light curves, we will assess the alignment of the planetary orbit with respect to the stellar spin axis. This degree of alignment traces the formation history and evolution of the planetary systems, and thus, allows to distinguish between different proposed migration theories. SOAPS will increase by a factor of 2 the number of spin-orbit alignment measurements pushing the parameters space down to the SuperEarth domain. Here we present our preliminary results.

PC 11: Symbiotic star or planetary nebulae?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gutierrez-Moreno, A.; Moreno, H.; Cortes, G.

1987-01-01

PC 11 is an object listed in Perek and Kohoutek (1967) Catalogue of Galactic Planetary Nebulae as PK 331 -5 0 1. Some authors suggest that it is not a planetary nebula, but that it has some characteristics (though not all) of symbiotic stars. We have made photographic, spectrophotometric and spectroscopic observations of PC 11. The analysis of the results suggests that it is a young planetary nebula. (Author)

Ideas of Physical Forces and Differential Calculus in Ancient India

OpenAIRE

Girish, T. E.; Nair, C. Radhakrishnan

2010-01-01

We have studied the context and development of the ideas of physical forces and differential calculus in ancient India by studying relevant literature related to both astrology and astronomy since pre-Greek periods. The concept of Naisargika Bala (natural force) discussed in Hora texts from India is defined to be proportional to planetary size and inversely related to planetary distance. This idea developed several centuries prior to Isaac Newton resembles fundamental physical forces in natur...

Precise Chemical Analyses of Planetary Surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Kring, David; Schweitzer, Jeffrey; Meyer, Charles; Trombka, Jacob; Freund, Friedemann; Economou, Thanasis; Yen, Albert; Kim, Soon Sam; Treiman, Allan H.; Blake, David;

Visualizing NASA's Planetary Data with Google Earth

Science.gov (United States)

Beyer, R. A.; Hancher, M. D.; Broxton, M.; Weiss-Malik, M.; Gorelick, N.; Kolb, E.

2008-12-01

There is a vast store of planetary geospatial data that has been collected by NASA but is difficult to access and visualize. As a 3D geospatial browser, the Google Earth client is one way to visualize planetary data. KML imagery super-overlays enable us to create a non-Earth planetary globe within Google Earth, and conversion of planetary meta-data allows display of the footprint locations of various higher-resolution data sets. Once our group, or any group, performs these data conversions the KML can be made available on the Web, where anyone can download it and begin using it in Google Earth (or any other geospatial browser), just like a Web page. Lucian Plesea at JPL offers several KML basemaps (MDIM, colorized MDIM, MOC composite, THEMIS day time infrared, and both grayscale and colorized MOLA). We have created TES Thermal Inertia maps, and a THEMIS night time infrared overlay, as well. Many data sets for Mars have already been converted to KML. We provide coverage polygons overlaid on the globe, whose icons can be clicked on and lead to the full PDS data URL. We have built coverage maps for the following data sets: MOC narrow angle, HRSC imagery and DTMs, SHARAD tracks, CTX, and HiRISE. The CRISM team is working on providing their coverage data via publicly-accessible KML. The MSL landing site process is also providing data for potential landing sites via KML. The Google Earth client and KML allow anyone to contribute data for everyone to see via the Web. The Earth sciences community is already utilizing KML and Google Earth in a variety of ways as a geospatial browser, and we hope that the planetary sciences community will do the same. Using this paradigm for sharing geospatial data will not only enable planetary scientists to more easily build and share data within the scientific community, but will also provide an easy platform for public outreach and education efforts, and will easily allow anyone to layer geospatial information on top of planetary data

Ultraviolet spectroscopy of planetary nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maran, S.P.; Aller, L.H.; Gull, T.R.; Stecher, T.P.

1982-01-01

Ultraviolet spectra of three high excitation planetary nebulae in the Magellanic Clouds (LMC P40, SMC N2, SMC N5) were obtained with the International Ultraviolet Explorer. The results are analyzed together with new visual wavelength spectrophotometry of LMC P40 and published data on SMC N2 and SMC N5 to investigate chemical composition and in particular to make the first reliable estimates of the carbon abundance in extragalactic planetary nebulae. Although carbon is at most only slightly less abundant in the LMC and SMC planetary nebulae than in galactic planetaries, it is almost 40 times more abundant in the SMC planetaries than in the SMC interstellar medium, and is about 6 times more abundant in the LMC planetary than in the LMC interstellar medium. According to our limited sample, the net result of carbon synthesis and convective dredgeup in the progenitors of planetary nebulae, as reflected in the nebular carbon abundance, is roughly the same in the Galaxy, the LMC, and the SMC

Planetary engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Pollack, James B.; Sagan, Carl

Assuming commercial fusion power, heavy lift vehicles and major advances in genetic engineering, the authors survey possible late-21st century methods of working major transformations in planetary environments. Much more Earthlike climates may be produced on Mars by generating low freezing point greenhouse gases from indigenous materials; on Venus by biological conversion of CO2 to graphite, by canceling the greenhouse effect with high-altitude absorbing fine particles, or by a sunshield at the first Lagrangian point; and on Titan by greenhouses and/or fusion warming. However, in our present state of ignorance we cannot guarantee a stable endstate or exclude unanticipated climatic feedbacks or other unintended consequences. Moreover, as the authors illustrate by several examples, many conceivable modes of planetary engineering are so wasteful of scarce solar system resources and so destructive of important scientific information as to raise profound ethical issues, even if they were economically feasible, which they are not. Global warming on Earth may lead to calls for mitigation by planetary engineering, e.g., emplacement and replenishment of anti-greenhouse layers at high altitudes, or sunshields in space. But here especially we must be concerned about precision, stability, and inadvertent side-effects. The safest and most cost-effective means of countering global warming - beyond, e.g., improved energy efficiency, CFC bans and alternative energy sources - is the continuing reforestation of approximately 2 times 107 sq km of the Earth's surface. This can be accomplished with present technology and probably at the least cost.

Planetary engineering

Science.gov (United States)

Pollack, James B.; Sagan, Carl

1991-01-01

Assuming commercial fusion power, heavy lift vehicles and major advances in genetic engineering, the authors survey possible late-21st century methods of working major transformations in planetary environments. Much more Earthlike climates may be produced on Mars by generating low freezing point greenhouse gases from indigenous materials; on Venus by biological conversion of CO2 to graphite, by canceling the greenhouse effect with high-altitude absorbing fine particles, or by a sunshield at the first Lagrangian point; and on Titan by greenhouses and/or fusion warming. However, in our present state of ignorance we cannot guarantee a stable endstate or exclude unanticipated climatic feedbacks or other unintended consequences. Moreover, as the authors illustrate by several examples, many conceivable modes of planetary engineering are so wasteful of scarce solar system resources and so destructive of important scientific information as to raise profound ethical issues, even if they were economically feasible, which they are not. Global warming on Earth may lead to calls for mitigation by planetary engineering, e.g., emplacement and replenishment of anti-greenhouse layers at high altitudes, or sunshields in space. But here especially we must be concerned about precision, stability, and inadvertent side-effects. The safest and most cost-effective means of countering global warming - beyond, e.g., improved energy efficiency, CFC bans and alternative energy sources - is the continuing reforestation of approximately 2 times 107 sq km of the Earth's surface. This can be accomplished with present technology and probably at the least cost.

Planetary Geomorphology.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Victor R.

1984-01-01

Discusses various topics related to planetary geomorphology, including: research techniques; such geomorphic processes as impact, volcanic, degradational, eolian, and hillslope/mass movement processes; and channels and valleys. Indicates that the subject should be taught as a series of scientific questions rather than scientific results of…

Electrostatic Phenomena on Planetary Surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

Calle, Carlos I.

2017-02-01

The diverse planetary environments in the solar system react in somewhat different ways to the encompassing influence of the Sun. These different interactions define the electrostatic phenomena that take place on and near planetary surfaces. The desire to understand the electrostatic environments of planetary surfaces goes beyond scientific inquiry. These environments have enormous implications for both human and robotic exploration of the solar system. This book describes in some detail what is known about the electrostatic environment of the solar system from early and current experiments on Earth as well as what is being learned from the instrumentation on the space exploration missions (NASA, European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency) of the last few decades. It begins with a brief review of the basic principles of electrostatics.

Significant achievements in the planetary geology program. Final report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Head, J.W.

1978-12-01

Developments reported at a meeting of principal investigators for NASA's planetology geology program are summarized. Topics covered include the following: constraints on solar system formation; asteriods, comets, and satellites; constraints on planetary interiors; volatiles and regoliths; instrument development techniques; planetary cartography; geological and geochemical constraints on planetary evolution; fluvial processes and channel formation; volcanic processes; Eolian processes; radar studies of planetary surfaces; cratering as a process, landform, and dating method; and the Tharsis region of Mars. Activities at a planetary geology field conference on Eolian processes are reported and techniques recommended for the presentation and analysis of crater size-frequency data are included

Rocky Planetary Debris Around Young WDs

Science.gov (United States)

Gaensicke, B.

2014-04-01

The vast majority of all known planet host stars, including the Sun, will eventually evolve into red giants and finally end their lives as white dwarfs: extremely dense Earth-sized stellar embers. Only close-in planets will be devoured during the red-giant phase. In the solar system, Mars, the asteroid belt, and all the giant planets will escape evaporation, and the same is true for many of the known exo-planets. It is hence certain that a significant fraction of the known white dwarfs were once host stars to planets, and it is very likely that many of them still have remnants of planetary systems. The detection of metals in the atmospheres of white dwarfs is the unmistakable signpost of such evolved planetary systems. The strong surface gravity of white dwarfs causes metals to sink out of the atmosphere on time-scales much shorter than their cooling ages, leading unavoidably to pristine H/He atmospheres. Therefore any metals detected in the atmosphere of a white dwarf imply recent or ongoing accretion of planetary debris. In fact, planetary debris is also detected as circumstellar dust and gas around a number of white dwarfs. These debris disks are formed from the tidal disruption of asteroids or Kuiper belt-like objects, stirred up by left-over planets, and are subsequently accreted onto the white dwarf, imprinting their abundance pattern into its atmosphere. Determining the photospheric abundances of debris-polluted white dwarfs is hence entirely analogue to the use of meteorites, "rocks that fell from the sky", for measuring the abundances of planetary material in the solar system. I will briefly review this new field of exo-planet science, and then focus on the results of a large, unbiased COS snapshot survey of relatively young ( 20-100Myr) white dwarfs that we carried out in Cycle 18/19. * At least 30% of all white dwarfs in our sample are accreting planetary debris, and that fraction may be as high as 50%. * In most cases where debris pollution is detected

Lunar and Planetary Science XXXV: Origin of Planetary Systems

Science.gov (United States)

2004-01-01

The session titled Origin of Planetary Systems" included the following reports:Convective Cooling of Protoplanetary Disks and Rapid Giant Planet Formation; When Push Comes to Shove: Gap-opening, Disk Clearing and the In Situ Formation of Giant Planets; Late Injection of Radionuclides into Solar Nebula Analogs in Orion; Growth of Dust Particles and Accumulation of Centimeter-sized Objects in the Vicinity of a Pressure enhanced Region of a Solar Nebula; Fast, Repeatable Clumping of Solid Particles in Microgravity ; Chondrule Formation by Current Sheets in Protoplanetary Disks; Radial Migration of Phyllosilicates in the Solar Nebula; Accretion of the Outer Planets: Oligarchy or Monarchy?; Resonant Capture of Irregular Satellites by a Protoplanet ; On the Final Mass of Giant Planets ; Predicting the Atmospheric Composition of Extrasolar Giant Planets; Overturn of Unstably Stratified Fluids: Implications for the Early Evolution of Planetary Mantles; and The Evolution of an Impact-generated Partially-vaporized Circumplanetary Disk.

SMALL PLANETARY SATELLITE COLORS V1.0

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — This data set is intended to include published colors of small planetary satellites published up through December 2003. Small planetary satellites are defined as all...

The architecture and formation of the Kepler-30 planetary system

Science.gov (United States)

Panichi, F.; Goździewski, K.; Migaszewski, C.; Szuszkiewicz, E.

2018-04-01

We study the orbital architecture, physical characteristics of planets, formation and long-term evolution of the Kepler-30 planetary system, detected and announced in 2012 by the KEPLER team. We show that the Kepler-30 system belongs to a particular class of very compact and quasi-resonant, yet long-term stable planetary systems. We re-analyse the light curves of the host star spanning Q1-Q17 quarters of the KEPLER mission. A huge variability of the Transit Timing Variations (TTV) exceeding 2 days is induced by a massive Jovian planet located between two Neptune-like companions. The innermost pair is near to the 2:1 mean motion resonance (MMR), and the outermost pair is close to higher order MMRs, such as 17:7 and 7:3. Our re-analysis of photometric data allows us to constrain, better than before, the orbital elements, planets' radii and masses, which are 9.2 ± 0.1, 536 ± 5, and 23.7 ± 1.3 Earth masses for Kepler-30b, Kepler-30c and Kepler-30d, respectively. The masses of the inner planets are determined within ˜1% uncertainty. We infer the internal structures of the Kepler-30 planets and their bulk densities in a wide range from (0.19 ± 0.01) g.cm-3 for Kepler-30d, (0.96 ± 0.15) g.cm-3 for Kepler-30b, to (1.71 ± 0.13) g.cm-3 for the Jovian planet Kepler-30c. We attempt to explain the origin of this unique planetary system and a deviation of the orbits from exact MMRs through the planetary migration scenario. We anticipate that the Jupiter-like planet plays an important role in determining the present dynamical state of this system.

The Formation of a Planetary Nebula.

Science.gov (United States)

Harpaz, Amos

1991-01-01

Proposes a scenario to describe the formation of a planetary nebula, a cloud of gas surrounding a very hot compact star. Describes the nature of a planetary nebula, the number observed to date in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the results of research on a specific nebula. (MDH)

Modeling, Testing, and Characteristic Analysis of a Planetary Flywheel Inerter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng Ge

2018-01-01

Full Text Available We propose the planetary flywheel inerter, which is a new type of ball screw inerter. A planetary flywheel consists of several planetary gears mounted on a flywheel bracket. When the flywheel bracket is driven by a screw and rotating, each planetary gear meshing with an outer ring gear generates a compound motion composed of revolution and rotation. Theoretical analysis shows that the output force of the planetary flywheel inerter is proportional to the relative acceleration of one terminal of the inerter to the other. Optimizing the gear ratio of the planetary gears to the ring gear allows the planetary flywheel to be lighter than its traditional counterpart, without any loss on the inertance. According to the structure of the planetary flywheel inerter, nonlinear factors of the inerter are analyzed, and a nonlinear dynamical model of the inerter is established. Then the parameters in the model are identified and the accuracy of the model is validated by experiment. Theoretical analysis and experimental data show that the dynamical characteristics of a planetary flywheel inerter and those of a traditional flywheel inerter are basically the same. It is concluded that a planetary flywheel can completely replace a traditional flywheel, making the inerter lighter.

Planetary Habitability

Science.gov (United States)

Kasting, James F.

1997-01-01

This grant was entitled 'Planetary Habitability' and the work performed under it related to elucidating the conditions that lead to habitable, i.e. Earth-like, planets. Below are listed publications for the past two and a half years that came out of this work. The main thrusts of the research involved: (1) showing under what conditions atmospheric O2 and O3 can be considered as evidence for life on a planet's surface; (2) determining whether CH4 may have played a role in warming early Mars; (3) studying the effect of varying UV levels on Earth-like planets around different types of stars to see whether this would pose a threat to habitability; and (4) studying the effect of chaotic obliquity variations on planetary climates and determining whether planets that experienced such variations might still be habitable. Several of these topics involve ongoing research that has been carried out under a new grant number, but which continues to be funded by NASA's Exobiology program.

Planetary geology

CERN Document Server

Gasselt, Stephan

2018-01-01

This book provides an up-to-date interdisciplinary geoscience-focused overview of solid solar system bodies and their evolution, based on the comparative description of processes acting on them. Planetary research today is a strongly multidisciplinary endeavor with efforts coming from engineering and natural sciences. Key focal areas of study are the solid surfaces found in our Solar System. Some have a direct interaction with the interplanetary medium and others have dynamic atmospheres. In any of those cases, the geological records of those surfaces (and sub-surfaces) are key to understanding the Solar System as a whole: its evolution and the planetary perspective of our own planet. This book has a modular structure and is divided into 4 sections comprising 15 chapters in total. Each section builds upon the previous one but is also self-standing. The sections are:  Methods and tools Processes and Sources  Integration and Geological Syntheses Frontiers The latter covers the far-reaching broad topics of exo...

From red giants to planetary nebulae: Asymmetries, dust, and polarization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, J.J.

1990-01-01

In order to investigate the development of aspherical planetary nebulae, polarimetry was obtained for a group of planetary nebulae and for objects that will evolve into planetary nebulae, i.e., red giants, late asymptotic giant branch (AGB) objects, proto-planetary nebulae, and young planetary nebulae. To study the dust around the objects in our sample, we also used data from the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) mission. The youngest objects in our survey, red giants, had the hottest dust temperatures while planetary nebulae had the coolest. Most of the objects were intrinsically polarized, including the red giants. This indicated that the circumstellar dust shells of these objects were aspherical. Both carbon- and oxygen-rich objects could be intrinsically polarized. The intrinsic polarizations of a sample of our objects were modeled using an ellipsoidal circumstellar dust shell. The findings of this study suggest that the asphericities that lead to an aspherical planetary nebula originate when a red giant begins to undergo mass loss. The polarization and thus the asphericity as the star evolves, with both reaching a maximum during the proto-planetary nebula stage. The circumstellar dust shell will dissipate after the proto-planetary nebulae stage since no new material is being added. The polarization of planetary nebulae will thus be low. In the most evolved planetary nebulae, the dust has either been destroyed or dissipated into the interstellar medium. In these objects no polarization was observed

Red giants as precursors of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Renzini, A.

1981-01-01

It is generally accepted that Planetary Nebulae are produced by asymptotic giant-branch stars. Therefore, several properties of planetary nebulae are discussed in the framework of the current theory of stellar evolution. (Auth.)

Blue Marble Matches: Using Earth for Planetary Comparisons

Science.gov (United States)

Graff, Paige Valderrama

2009-01-01

Goal: This activity is designed to introduce students to geologic processes on Earth and model how scientists use Earth to gain a better understanding of other planetary bodies in the solar system. Objectives: Students will: 1. Identify common descriptor characteristics used by scientists to describe geologic features in images. 2. Identify geologic features and how they form on Earth. 3. Create a list of defining/distinguishing characteristics of geologic features 4. Identify geologic features in images of other planetary bodies. 5. List observations and interpretations about planetary body comparisons. 6. Create summary statements about planetary body comparisons.

The offset dependent behavior of narrow optical emission features in the Red Rectangle proto-planetary nebula

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wehres, N.; Linnartz, H.; Van Winckel, H.; Tielens, A. G. G. M.

Context. The Red Rectangle proto-planetary nebula provides a unique laboratory to study the physical conditions and chemical processes in stellar outflows. Snapshots of the ongoing chemical evolution are obtained by monitoring spectra as function of the offset from the central star. Aims. The focus

Summary of the Third International Planetary Dunes Workshop: remote sensing and image analysis of planetary dunes

Science.gov (United States)

Fenton, Lori K.; Hayward, Rosalyn K.; Horgan, Briony H.N.; Rubin, David M.; Titus, Timothy N.; Bishop, Mark A.; Burr, Devon M.; Chojnacki, Matthew; Dinwiddie, Cynthia L.; Kerber, Laura; Gall, Alice Le; Michaels, Timothy I.; Neakrase, Lynn D.V.; Newman, Claire E.; Tirsch, Daniela; Yizhaq, Hezi; Zimbelman, James R.

2013-01-01

The Third International Planetary Dunes Workshop took place in Flagstaff, AZ, USA during June 12–15, 2012. This meeting brought together a diverse group of researchers to discuss recent advances in terrestrial and planetary research on aeolian bedforms. The workshop included two and a half days of oral and poster presentations, as well as one formal (and one informal) full-day field trip. Similar to its predecessors, the presented work provided new insight on the morphology, dynamics, composition, and origin of aeolian bedforms on Venus, Earth, Mars, and Titan, with some intriguing speculation about potential aeolian processes on Triton (a satellite of Neptune) and Pluto. Major advancements since the previous International Planetary Dunes Workshop include the introduction of several new data analysis and numerical tools and utilization of low-cost field instruments (most notably the time-lapse camera). Most presentations represented advancement towards research priorities identified in both of the prior two workshops, although some previously recommended research approaches were not discussed. In addition, this workshop provided a forum for participants to discuss the uncertain future of the Planetary Aeolian Laboratory; subsequent actions taken as a result of the decisions made during the workshop may lead to an expansion of funding opportunities to use the facilities, as well as other improvements. The interactions during this workshop contributed to the success of the Third International Planetary Dunes Workshop, further developing our understanding of aeolian processes on the aeolian worlds of the Solar System.

Mars Technology Program Planetary Protection Technology Development

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Ying

2006-01-01

The objectives of the NASA Planetary Protection program are to preserve biological and organic conditions of solar-system bodies for future scientific exploration and to protect the Earth from potential hazardous extraterrestrial contamination. As the exploration of solar system continues, NASA remains committed to the implementation of planetary protection policy and regulations. To fulfill this commitment, the Mars Technology Program (MTP) has invested in a portfolio of tasks for developing necessary technologies to meet planetary protection requirements for the next decade missions.

Planetary optical and infrared imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Terrile, R.J.

1988-01-01

The purpose of this investigation is to obtain and analyze high spatial resolution charge coupled device (CCD) coronagraphic images of extra-solar planetary material and solar system objects. These data will provide information on the distribution of planetary and proto-planetary material around nearby stars leading to a better understanding of the origin and evolution of the solar system. Imaging within our solar system will provide information on the current cloud configurations on the outer planets, search for new objects around the outer planets, and provide direct support for Voyager, Galileo, and CRAF by imaging material around asteroids and clouds on Neptune. Over the last year this program acquired multispectral and polarization images of the disk of material around the nearby star Beta Pictoris. This material is believed to be associated with the formation of planets and provides a first look at a planetary system much younger than our own. Preliminary color and polarization data suggest that the material is very low albedo and similar to dark outer solar system carbon rich material. A coronagraphic search for other systems is underway and has already examined over 100 nearby stars. Coronagraphic imaging provided the first clear look at the rings of Uranus and albedo limits for the ring arcs around Neptune

NASA's Planetary Science Missions and Participations

Science.gov (United States)

Daou, Doris; Green, James L.

2017-04-01

NASA's Planetary Science Division (PSD) and space agencies around the world are collaborating on an extensive array of missions exploring our solar system. Planetary science missions are conducted by some of the most sophisticated robots ever built. International collaboration is an essential part of what we do. NASA has always encouraged international participation on our missions both strategic (ie: Mars 2020) and competitive (ie: Discovery and New Frontiers) and other Space Agencies have reciprocated and invited NASA investigators to participate in their missions. NASA PSD has partnerships with virtually every major space agency. For example, NASA has had a long and very fruitful collaboration with ESA. ESA has been involved in the Cassini mission and, currently, NASA funded scientists are involved in the Rosetta mission (3 full instruments, part of another), BepiColombo mission (1 instrument in the Italian Space Agency's instrument suite), and the Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer mission (1 instrument and parts of two others). In concert with ESA's Mars missions NASA has an instrument on the Mars Express mission, the orbit-ground communications package on the Trace Gas Orbiter (launched in March 2016) and part of the DLR/Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer instruments going onboard the ExoMars Rover (to be launched in 2018). NASA's Planetary Science Division has continuously provided its U.S. planetary science community with opportunities to include international participation on NASA missions too. For example, NASA's Discovery and New Frontiers Programs provide U.S. scientists the opportunity to assemble international teams and design exciting, focused planetary science investigations that would deepen the knowledge of our Solar System. The PSD put out an international call for instruments on the Mars 2020 mission. This procurement led to the selection of Spain and Norway scientist leading two instruments and French scientists providing a significant portion of another

Scaling properties of planetary calderas and terrestrial volcanic eruptions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L. Sanchez

2012-11-01

Full Text Available Volcanism plays an important role in transporting internal heat of planetary bodies to their surface. Therefore, volcanoes are a manifestation of the planet's past and present internal dynamics. Volcanic eruptions as well as caldera forming processes are the direct manifestation of complex interactions between the rising magma and the surrounding host rock in the crust of terrestrial planetary bodies. Attempts have been made to compare volcanic landforms throughout the solar system. Different stochastic models have been proposed to describe the temporal sequences of eruptions on individual or groups of volcanoes. However, comprehensive understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for volcano formation and eruption and more specifically caldera formation remains elusive. In this work, we propose a scaling law to quantify the distribution of caldera sizes on Earth, Mars, Venus, and Io, as well as the distribution of calderas on Earth depending on their surrounding crustal properties. We also apply the same scaling analysis to the distribution of interevent times between eruptions for volcanoes that have the largest eruptive history as well as groups of volcanoes on Earth. We find that when rescaled with their respective sample averages, the distributions considered show a similar functional form. This result implies that similar processes are responsible for caldera formation throughout the solar system and for different crustal settings on Earth. This result emphasizes the importance of comparative planetology to understand planetary volcanism. Similarly, the processes responsible for volcanic eruptions are independent of the type of volcanism or geographical location.

The Planetary Data System Web Catalog Interface--Another Use of the Planetary Data System Data Model

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, S.; Bernath, A.

1995-01-01

The Planetary Data System Data Model consists of a set of standardized descriptions of entities within the Planetary Science Community. These can be real entities in the space exploration domain such as spacecraft, instruments, and targets; conceptual entities such as data sets, archive volumes, and data dictionaries; or the archive data products such as individual images, spectrum, series, and qubes.

Planetary nebulae: 20 years of Hubble inquiry

Science.gov (United States)

Balick, Bruce

2012-08-01

The Hubble Space Telescope has served the critical roles of microscope and movie camera in the past 20 years of research on planetary nebulae (``PNe''). We have glimpsed the details of the evolving structures of neutral and ionized post-AGB objects, built ingenious heuristic models that mimic these structures, and constrained most of the relevant physical processes with careful observations and interpretation. We have searched for close physical binary stars with spatial resolution ~50 AU at 1 AU, located jets emerging from the nucleus at speeds up to 2000 km s-1 and matched newly discovered molecular and X-ray emission regions to physical substructures in order to better understand how stellar winds and ionizing radiation interact to form the lovely symmetries that are observed. Ultraviolet spectra of CNO in PNe help to uncover how stars process deep inside AGB stars with unstable nuclear burning zones. HST broadband imaging has been at the forefront of uncovering surprisingly complex wind morphologies produced at the tip of the AGB, and has led to an increasing realization of the potentially vital roles of close binary stars and emerging magnetic fields in shaping stellar winds.

Equations of State: Gateway to Planetary Origin and Evolution (Invited)

Science.gov (United States)

Melosh, J.

2013-12-01

Research over the past decades has shown that collisions between solid bodies govern many crucial phases of planetary origin and evolution. The accretion of the terrestrial planets was punctuated by planetary-scale impacts that generated deep magma oceans, ejected primary atmospheres and probably created the moons of Earth and Pluto. Several extrasolar planetary systems are filled with silicate vapor and condensed 'tektites', probably attesting to recent giant collisions. Even now, long after the solar system settled down from its violent birth, a large asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs, while other impacts may have played a role in the origin of life on Earth and perhaps Mars, while maintaining a steady exchange of small meteorites between the terrestrial planets and our moon. Most of these events are beyond the scale at which experiments are possible, so that our main research tool is computer simulation, constrained by the laws of physics and the behavior of materials during high-speed impact. Typical solar system impact velocities range from a few km/s in the outer solar system to 10s of km/s in the inner system. Extrasolar planetary systems expand that range to 100s of km/sec typical of the tightly clustered planetary systems now observed. Although computer codes themselves are currently reaching a high degree of sophistication, we still rely on experimental studies to determine the Equations of State (EoS) of materials critical for the correct simulation of impact processes. The recent expansion of the range of pressures available for study, from a few 100 GPa accessible with light gas guns up to a few TPa from current high energy accelerators now opens experimental access to the full velocity range of interest in our solar system. The results are a surprise: several groups in both the USA and Japan have found that silicates and even iron melt and vaporize much more easily in an impact than previously anticipated. The importance of these findings is

Inclusive Planetary Science Outreach and Education: a Pioneering European Experience

Science.gov (United States)

Galvez, A.; Ballesteros, F.; García-Frank, A.; Gil, S.; Gil-Ortiz, A.; Gómez-Heras, M.; Martínez-Frías, J.; Parro, L. M.; Parro, V.; Pérez-Montero, E.; Raposo, V.; Vaquerizo, J. A.

2017-09-01

Abstract Universal access to space science and exploration for researchers, students and the public, regardless of physical abilities or condition, is the main objective of work by the Space Inclusive Network (SpaceIn). The purpose of SpaceIn is to conduct educational and communication activities on Space Science in an inclusive and accessible way, so that physical disability is not an impediment for participating. SpaceIn members aim to enlarge the network also by raising awareness among individuals such as undergraduate students, secondary school teachers, and members of the public with an interest and basic knowledge on science and astronomy. As part of a pilot experience, current activities are focused on education and outreach in the field of comparative Planetary Science and Astrobiology. Themes include the similarities and differences between terrestrial planets, the role of water and its interaction with minerals on their surfaces, the importance of internal thermal energy in shaping planets and moons and the implications for the appearance of life, as we know it, in our planet and, possibly, in other places in our Solar System and beyond. The topics also include how scientific research and space missions can shed light on these fundamental issues, such as how life appears on a planet, and thus, why planetary missions are important in our society, as a source of knowledge and inspiration. The tools that are used to communicate the concepts include talks with support of multimedia and multi-sensorial material (video, audio, tactile, taste, smell) and field trips to planetary analogue sites that are accessible to most members of the public, including people with some kind of disability. The field trips help illustrate scientific concepts in geology e.g. lava formations, folds, impact features, gullies, salt plains; biology, e.g. extremophiles, halophites; and exploration technology, e.g. navigation in an unknown environment, hazard and obstacle avoidance

Effects of mass and metallicity upon planetary nebula formation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Papp, K.A.; Purton, C.R.; Kwok, S.

1983-01-01

We construct a parameterized function which describes the possible dependence of planetary nebula formation upon metal abundance and stellar mass. Data on galaxies in the Local Group compared with predictions made from the parameterized function indicate that heavy element abundance is the principal agent influencing the formation of planetary nebulae; stars which are rich in heavy elements are the progenitors of planetary nebulae. Our analysis, when compared with the observations, argues for a modest degree of pre-enrichment in a few of the sample galaxies. The heavy element dependence of planetary nebula formation also accounts for the deficit of planetary nebula in the nuclei of NGC 221 and NGC 224, and in the bulge of our Galaxy

DESIGN FOR A BI-PLANETARY GEAR TRAIN

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Józef DREWNIAK

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The article presents the design for a bi-planetary gear train. The project description is supplemented with calculations of kinematics, statics and meshing efficiency of the gear wheels included in the gear train. Excluded are calculations of strength and geometry of gears, shaft and rolling bearing, since they are similar to classical calculations for planetary gears. An assembly drawing in 2D and assembly drawings in 3D of the designed bi-planetary gear train are also shown. This gear train will form the main element of the research in hand.

Robotic vehicles for planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Wilcox, Brian; Matthies, Larry; Gennery, Donald; Cooper, Brian; Nguyen, Tam; Litwin, Todd; Mishkin, Andrew; Stone, Henry

1992-01-01

A program to develop planetary rover technology is underway at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) under sponsorship of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Developmental systems with the necessary sensing, computing, power, and mobility resources to demonstrate realistic forms of control for various missions have been developed, and initial testing has been completed. These testbed systems and the associated navigation techniques used are described. Particular emphasis is placed on three technologies: Computer-Aided Remote Driving (CARD), Semiautonomous Navigation (SAN), and behavior control. It is concluded that, through the development and evaluation of such technologies, research at JPL has expanded the set of viable planetary rover mission possibilities beyond the limits of remotely teleoperated systems such as Lunakhod. These are potentially applicable to exploration of all the solid planetary surfaces in the solar system, including Mars, Venus, and the moons of the gas giant planets.

Finite Element Residual Stress Analysis of Planetary Gear Tooth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jungang Wang

2013-01-01

Full Text Available A method to simulate residual stress field of planetary gear is proposed. In this method, the finite element model of planetary gear is established and divided to tooth zone and profile zone, whose different temperature field is set. The gear's residual stress simulation is realized by the thermal compression stress generated by the temperature difference. Based on the simulation, the finite element model of planetary gear train is established, the dynamic meshing process is simulated, and influence of residual stress on equivalent stress of addendum, pitch circle, and dedendum of internal and external meshing planetary gear tooth profile is analyzed, according to non-linear contact theory, thermodynamic theory, and finite element theory. The results show that the equivalent stresses of planetary gear at both meshing and nonmeshing surface are significantly and differently reduced by residual stress. The study benefits fatigue cracking analysis and dynamic optimization design of planetary gear train.

The ExtraSolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph

Science.gov (United States)

Clampin, M.; Lyon, R.

2010-10-01

The Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC) is a 1.65-m telescope employing a visible nulling coronagraph (VNC) to deliver high-contrast images of extrasolar system architectures. EPIC will survey the architectures of exosolar systems, and investigate the physical nature of planets in these solar systems. EPIC will employ a Visible Nulling Coronagraph (VNC), featuring an inner working angle of ≤2λ/D, and offers the ideal balance between performance and feasibility of implementation, while not sacrificing science return. The VNC does not demand unrealistic thermal stability from its telescope optics, achieving its primary mirror surface figure requires no new technology, and pointing stability is within state of the art. The EPIC mission will be launched into a drift-away orbit with a five-year mission lifetime.

Life Support and Habitation and Planetary Protection Workshop

Science.gov (United States)

Hogan, John A. (Editor); Race, Margaret S. (Editor); Fisher, John W. (Editor); Joshi, Jitendra A. (Editor); Rummel, John D. (Editor)

2006-01-01

A workshop entitled "Life Support and Habitation and Planetary Protection Workshop" was held in Houston, Texas on April 27-29, 2005 to facilitate the development of planetary protection guidelines for future human Mars exploration missions and to identify the potential effects of these guidelines on the design and selection of related human life support, extravehicular activity and monitoring and control systems. This report provides a summary of the workshop organization, starting assumptions, working group results and recommendations. Specific result topics include the identification of research and technology development gaps, potential forward and back contaminants and pathways, mitigation alternatives, and planetary protection requirements definition needs. Participants concluded that planetary protection and science-based requirements potentially affect system design, technology trade options, development costs and mission architecture. Therefore early and regular coordination between the planetary protection, scientific, planning, engineering, operations and medical communities is needed to develop workable and effective designs for human exploration of Mars.

Young planetary nebula with OH molecules - NGC 6302

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Payne, H.E.; Phillips, J.A.; Terzian, Y.

1988-01-01

The results of a sensitive survey of planetary nebulae in all four ground-state OH lines are reported. The results confirm that evolved planetary nebulas are not OH sources in general. However, one interesting object was not detected: an OH 1612 MHz maser in the young planetary nebula NGC 6302. This nebula may be in a brief evolutionary stage, similar to the young and compact planetary nebula Vy 2-2, where OH has already been detected. In addition, the results of further observations of NGC 6302 are reported, including VLA observations of the 1612 MHz line and continuum emission and detections of rotationally excited OH lines at 5-cm wavelength in absorption. 28 references

Energy Balance Models and Planetary Dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Domagal-Goldman, Shawn

2012-01-01

We know that planetary dynamics can have a significant affect on the climate of planets. Planetary dynamics dominate the glacial-interglacial periods on Earth, leaving a significant imprint on the geological record. They have also been demonstrated to have a driving influence on the climates of other planets in our solar system. We should therefore expect th.ere to be similar relationships on extrasolar planets. Here we describe a simple energy balance model that can predict the growth and thickness of glaciers, and their feedbacks on climate. We will also describe model changes that we have made to include planetary dynamics effects. This is the model we will use at the start of our collaboration to handle the influence of dynamics on climate.

An online planetary exploration tool: ;Country Movers;

Science.gov (United States)

Gede, Mátyás; Hargitai, Henrik

2017-08-01

Results in astrogeologic investigations are rarely communicated towards the general public by maps despite the new advances in planetary spatial informatics and new spatial datasets in high resolution and more complete coverage. Planetary maps are typically produced by astrogeologists for other professionals, and not by cartographers for the general public. We report on an application designed for students, which uses cartography as framework to aid the virtual exploration of other planets and moons, using the concepts of size comparison and travel time calculation. We also describe educational activities that build on geographic knowledge and expand it to planetary surfaces.

Mars Technology Program: Planetary Protection Technology Development

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Ying

2006-01-01

This slide presentation reviews the development of Planetary Protection Technology in the Mars Technology Program. The goal of the program is to develop technologies that will enable NASA to build, launch, and operate a mission that has subsystems with different Planetary Protection (PP) classifications, specifically for operating a Category IVb-equivalent subsystem from a Category IVa platform. The IVa category of planetary protection requires bioburden reduction (i.e., no sterilization is required) The IVb category in addition to IVa requirements: (i.e., terminal sterilization of spacecraft is required). The differences between the categories are further reviewed.

ULF Waves Upstream from Planetary Bow Shocks: Application to the Interball-Tail Observations at the Earth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trotignon, J.G.; Rauch, J.L.; Klimov, S.; Nozdrachev, M.; Romanov, S.; Savin, S.; Skalsky, A.; Blecki, J.; Juchniewicz, J.; Amata, E.

1999-01-01

One of the outstanding problems in solar system plasma physics is the morphology of planetary and cometary foreshocks. A large variety of electron and ion velocity distribution functions, as well as electrostatic and electromagnetic waves phenomena, are indeed currently observed in these regions located upstream from, and magnetically connected to, bow shocks. Foreshocks being complex and highly dynamic, it is not easy to get a comprehensive description of them. Nevertheless, simple geometrical considerations can be of help to order foreshock structures. In light of the great number of results obtained in planetary foreshocks, which are briefly reviewed, we present an ongoing study of the upstream waves observed by the INTERBALL-TAIL magnetometers in the Ultra Low Frequency range. (author)

Optical observations of southern planetary nebula candidates

NARCIS (Netherlands)

VandeSteene, GC; Sahu, KC; Pottasch, [No Value

1996-01-01

We present H alpha+[NII] images and low resolution spectra of 16 IRAS-selected, southern planetary nebula candidates previously detected in the radio continuum. The H alpha+[NII] images are presented as finding charts. Contour plots are shown for the resolved planetary nebulae. From these images

Formation of Planetary Populations I: Metallicity & Envelope Opacity Effects

Science.gov (United States)

Alessi, Matthew; Pudritz, Ralph E.

2018-05-01

We present a comprehensive body of simulations of the formation of exoplanetary populations that incorporate the role of planet traps in slowing planetary migration. The traps we include in our model are the water ice line, the disk heat transition, and the dead zone outer edge. We reduce our model parameter set to two physical parameters: the opacity of the accreting planetary atmospheres (κenv) and a measure of the efficiency of planetary accretion after gap opening (fmax). We perform planet population synthesis calculations based on the initial observed distributions of host star and disk properties - their disk masses, lifetimes, and stellar metallicities. We find the frequency of giant planet formation scales with disk metallicity, in agreement with the observed Jovian planet frequency-metallicity relation. We consider both X-ray and cosmic ray disk ionization models, whose differing ionization rates lead to different dead zone trap locations. In both cases, Jovian planets form in our model out to 2-3 AU, with a distribution at smaller radii dependent on the disk ionization source and the setting of envelope opacity. We find that low values of κenv (0.001-0.002 cm2 g-1) and X-ray disk ionization are necessary to obtain a separation between hot Jupiters near 0.1 AU, and warm Jupiters outside 0.6 AU, a feature present in the data. Our model also produces a large number of super Earths, but the majority are outside of 2 AU. As our model assumes a constant dust to gas ratio, we suggest that radial dust evolution must be taken into account to reproduce the observed super Earth population.

Exoplanet atmospheres physical processes

CERN Document Server

Seager, Sara

2010-01-01

Over the past twenty years, astronomers have identified hundreds of extrasolar planets--planets orbiting stars other than the sun. Recent research in this burgeoning field has made it possible to observe and measure the atmospheres of these exoplanets. This is the first textbook to describe the basic physical processes--including radiative transfer, molecular absorption, and chemical processes--common to all planetary atmospheres, as well as the transit, eclipse, and thermal phase variation observations that are unique to exoplanets. In each chapter, Sara Seager offers a conceptual introduction, examples that combine the relevant physics equations with real data, and exercises. Topics range from foundational knowledge, such as the origin of atmospheric composition and planetary spectra, to more advanced concepts, such as solutions to the radiative transfer equation, polarization, and molecular and condensate opacities. Since planets vary widely in their atmospheric properties, Seager emphasizes the major p...

The activities and prospect of planetary protection research in China

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Ming

2016-07-01

Planetary protection is an important activities and responsibilities for space exploration. In Chinese manned missions, micro-organism research and protection has been developed in Shenzhou-9, Shenzhou-10 and Tiangong-2 missions. In the experiment facility of Lunar Palace-1, the micro-organism pollution and protection/control technology has been studied. In the lunar sample recovery mission and China Mars mission, the planetary protection has become an important issue. This paper introduced the research about planetary protection in China. The planetary protection activities, strategy and procedures have been suggested for future space exploration program to meet the requirement for planetary protection, such as cabin pollution isolation, pollutant detection, and so on.

The brazilian indigenous planetary-observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Afonso, G. B.

2003-08-01

We have performed observations of the sky alongside with the Indians of all Brazilian regions that made it possible localize many indigenous constellations. Some of these constellations are the same as the other South American Indians and Australian aborigines constellations. The scientific community does not have much of this information, which may be lost in one or two generations. In this work, we present a planetary-observatory that we have made in the Park of Science Newton Freire-Maia of Paraná State, in order to popularize the astronomical knowledge of the Brazilian Indians. The planetary consists, essentially, of a sphere of six meters in diameter and a projection cylinder of indigenous constellations. In this planetary we can identify a lot of constellations that we have gotten from the Brazilian Indians; for instance, the four seasonal constellations: the Tapir (spring), the Old Man (summer), the Deer (autumn) and the Rhea (winter). A two-meter height wooden staff that is posted vertically on the horizontal ground similar to a Gnomon and stones aligned with the cardinal points and the soltices directions constitutes the observatory. A stone circle of ten meters in diameter surrounds the staff and the aligned stones. During the day we observe the Sun apparent motions and at night the indigenous constellations. Due to the great community interest in our work, we are designing an itinerant indigenous planetary-observatory to be used in other cities mainly by indigenous and primary schools teachers.

Robotic Missions to Small Bodies and Their Potential Contributions to Human Exploration and Planetary Defense

Science.gov (United States)

Abell, Paul A.; Rivkin, Andrew S.

2015-01-01

Introduction: Robotic missions to small bodies will directly address aspects of NASA's Asteroid Initiative and will contribute to future human exploration and planetary defense. The NASA Asteroid Initiative is comprised of two major components: the Grand Challenge and the Asteroid Mission. The first component, the Grand Challenge, focuses on protecting Earth's population from asteroid impacts by detecting potentially hazardous objects with enough warning time to either prevent them from impacting the planet, or to implement civil defense procedures. The Asteroid Mission involves sending astronauts to study and sample a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) prior to conducting exploration missions of the Martian system, which includes Phobos and Deimos. The science and technical data obtained from robotic precursor missions that investigate the surface and interior physical characteristics of an object will help identify the pertinent physical properties that will maximize operational efficiency and reduce mission risk for both robotic assets and crew operating in close proximity to, or at the surface of, a small body. These data will help fill crucial strategic knowledge gaps (SKGs) concerning asteroid physical characteristics that are relevant for human exploration considerations at similar small body destinations. These data can also be applied for gaining an understanding of pertinent small body physical characteristics that would also be beneficial for formulating future impact mitigation procedures. Small Body Strategic Knowledge Gaps: For the past several years NASA has been interested in identifying the key SKGs related to future human destinations. These SKGs highlight the various unknowns and/or data gaps of targets that the science and engineering communities would like to have filled in prior to committing crews to explore the Solar System. An action team from the Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) was formed specifically to identify the small body SKGs under the

Theoretical investigation into the existence of molecules in planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carlson, W.J.

1980-01-01

Calculations of chemical kinetic equilibrium molecular abundances in the neutral regions of planetary nebulae are presented. The development of these abundances during the expansion of the nebula is calculated. The physical parameters in the neutral regions following the formation of the nebula by the ejection of the envelope of a long peiod variable star have been taken from available dynamical models. Similarly, the temperature and luminosity of the central star as a function of time have been taken from available theoretical calculations. The thermal equilibrium has been solved independently. The temperatures in the shell and later in the condensations which develop are in the range from 30 to 250 K. Number densities range from 10 7 for the youngest model calculated to 2 x 10 4 for neutral condensations in a 10,000 year old nebula. It is shown that, for a typical nebula containing 0.2 Msub solar, molecules are expected to be the dominant form for only a short period early in the expansion phase. Subsequently, the condensations are not sufficiently optically thick to permit the continued existence of a preponderance of molecules. The molecular abundances in the later models are similar to those in diffuse interstellar clouds. The expectation arising from those results is that little molecular material will be injected into the interstellar medium by planetary nebulae. There is, however, a remarkable resemblance between the conditions in the model calculated at very early stages of the expansion and conditions deduced from observations for proto-planetary nebulae

YOUNG PLANETARY NEBULAE: HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE IMAGING AND A NEW MORPHOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sahai, Raghvendra; Villar, Gregory G.; Morris, Mark R.

2011-01-01

Using Hubble Space Telescope images of 119 young planetary nebulae (PNs), most of which have not previously been published, we have devised a comprehensive morphological classification system for these objects. This system generalizes a recently devised system for pre-planetary nebulae, which are the immediate progenitors of PNs. Unlike previous classification studies, we have focused primarily on young PNs rather than all PNs, because the former best show the influences or symmetries imposed on them by the dominant physical processes operating at the first and primary stage of the shaping process. Older PNs develop instabilities, interact with the ambient interstellar medium, and are subject to the passage of photoionization fronts, all of which obscure the underlying symmetries and geometries imposed early on. Our classification system is designed to suffer minimal prejudice regarding the underlying physical causes of the different shapes and structures seen in our PN sample, however, in many cases, physical causes are readily suggested by the geometry, along with the kinematics that have been measured in some systems. Secondary characteristics in our system, such as ansae, indicate the impact of a jet upon a slower-moving, prior wind; a waist is the signature of a strong equatorial concentration of matter, whether it be outflowing or in a bound Keplerian disk, and point symmetry indicates a secular trend, presumably precession, in the orientation of the central driver of a rapid, collimated outflow.

Simulation of ball motion and energy transfer in a planetary ball mill

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu Sheng-Yong; Mao Qiong-Jing; Li Xiao-Dong; Yan Jian-Hua; Peng Zheng

2012-01-01

A kinetic model is proposed for simulating the trajectory of a single milling ball in a planetary ball mill, and a model is also proposed for simulating the local energy transfer during the ball milling process under no-slip conditions. Based on the kinematics of ball motion, the collision frequency and power are described, and the normal impact forces and effective power are derived from analyses of collision geometry. The Hertzian impact theory is applied to formulate these models after having established some relationships among the geometric, dynamic, and thermophysical parameters. Simulation is carried out based on two models, and the effects of the rotation velocity of the planetary disk Ω and the vial-to-disk speed ratio ω/Ω on other kinetic parameters is investigated. As a result, the optimal ratio ω/Ω to obtain high impact energy in the standard operating condition at Ω = 800 rpm is estimated, and is equal to 1.15. (interdisciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

Planetary Space Weather Services for the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

André, Nicolas; Grande, Manuel

2016-04-01

Under Horizon 2020, the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (EPN2020-RI) will include an entirely new Virtual Access Service, WP5 VA1 "Planetary Space Weather Services" (PSWS) that will extend the concepts of space weather and space situational awareness to other planets in our Solar System and in particular to spacecraft that voyage through it. VA1 will make five entirely new 'toolkits' accessible to the research community and to industrial partners planning for space missions: a general planetary space weather toolkit, as well as three toolkits dedicated to the following key planetary environments: Mars (in support ExoMars), comets (building on the expected success of the ESA Rosetta mission), and outer planets (in preparation for the ESA JUICE mission to be launched in 2022). This will give the European planetary science community new methods, interfaces, functionalities and/or plugins dedicated to planetary space weather in the tools and models available within the partner institutes. It will also create a novel event-diary toolkit aiming at predicting and detecting planetary events like meteor showers and impacts. A variety of tools (in the form of web applications, standalone software, or numerical models in various degrees of implementation) are available for tracing propagation of planetary and/or solar events through the Solar System and modelling the response of the planetary environment (surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres) to those events. But these tools were not originally designed for planetary event prediction and space weather applications. So WP10 JRA4 "Planetary Space Weather Services" (PSWS) will provide the additional research and tailoring required to apply them for these purposes. The overall objectives of this Joint Research Aactivities will be to review, test, improve and adapt methods and tools available within the partner institutes in order to make prototype planetary event and space weather services operational in

To See the Unseen: A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy

Science.gov (United States)

Butrica, Andrew J.

1996-01-01

This book relates the history of planetary radar astronomy from its origins in radar to the present day and secondarily to bring to light that history as a case of 'Big Equipment but not Big Science'. Chapter One sketches the emergence of radar astronomy as an ongoing scientific activity at Jodrell Bank, where radar research revealed that meteors were part of the solar system. The chief Big Science driving early radar astronomy experiments was ionospheric research. Chapter Two links the Cold War and the Space Race to the first radar experiments attempted on planetary targets, while recounting the initial achievements of planetary radar, namely, the refinement of the astronomical unit and the rotational rate and direction of Venus. Chapter Three discusses early attempts to organize radar astronomy and the efforts at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, in conjunction with Harvard radio astronomers, to acquire antenna time unfettered by military priorities. Here, the chief Big Science influencing the development of planetary radar astronomy was radio astronomy. Chapter Four spotlights the evolution of planetary radar astronomy at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a NASA facility, at Cornell University's Arecibo Observatory, and at Jodrell Bank. A congeries of funding from the military, the National Science Foundation, and finally NASA marked that evolution, which culminated in planetary radar astronomy finding a single Big Science patron, NASA. Chapter Five analyzes planetary radar astronomy as a science using the theoretical framework provided by philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. Chapter Six explores the shift in planetary radar astronomy beginning in the 1970s that resulted from its financial and institutional relationship with NASA Big Science. Chapter Seven addresses the Magellan mission and its relation to the evolution of planetary radar astronomy from a ground-based to a space-based activity. Chapters Eight and Nine discuss the research carried out at ground

Collisional stripping of planetary crusts

Science.gov (United States)

Carter, Philip J.; Leinhardt, Zoë M.; Elliott, Tim; Stewart, Sarah T.; Walter, Michael J.

2018-02-01

Geochemical studies of planetary accretion and evolution have invoked various degrees of collisional erosion to explain differences in bulk composition between planets and chondrites. Here we undertake a full, dynamical evaluation of 'crustal stripping' during accretion and its key geochemical consequences. Crusts are expected to contain a significant fraction of planetary budgets of incompatible elements, which include the major heat producing nuclides. We present smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations of collisions between differentiated rocky planetesimals and planetary embryos. We find that the crust is preferentially lost relative to the mantle during impacts, and we have developed a scaling law based on these simulations that approximates the mass of crust that remains in the largest remnant. Using this scaling law and a recent set of N-body simulations of terrestrial planet formation, we have estimated the maximum effect of crustal stripping on incompatible element abundances during the accretion of planetary embryos. We find that on average approximately one third of the initial crust is stripped from embryos as they accrete, which leads to a reduction of ∼20% in the budgets of the heat producing elements if the stripped crust does not reaccrete. Erosion of crusts can lead to non-chondritic ratios of incompatible elements, but the magnitude of this effect depends sensitively on the details of the crust-forming melting process on the planetesimals. The Lu/Hf system is fractionated for a wide range of crustal formation scenarios. Using eucrites (the products of planetesimal silicate melting, thought to represent the crust of Vesta) as a guide to the Lu/Hf of planetesimal crust partially lost during accretion, we predict the Earth could evolve to a superchondritic 176Hf/177Hf (3-5 parts per ten thousand) at present day. Such values are in keeping with compositional estimates of the bulk Earth. Stripping of planetary crusts during accretion can lead to

DEFINITION OF THE GEAR’S GEOMETRY IN THE PLANETARY CYCLOIDAL TRANSMISSION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sławomir BEDNARCZYK

2014-03-01

Full Text Available In the paper, the design and operation of the planetary cycloidal transmission have been discussed. The transmission is a synthesis of the planetary and the straight-line mechanism. The planetary mechanism is made of a planetary gear set with rollers, which is critical for the proper work of the transmission. Its basic and most important element is the planetary cycloidal gear. Influence of the parameters determining the cycloidal profile of the gear on the gear’s geometry and the forces has been presented. The straight-line mechanism carrying the motion from the driving onto the driven unit of the transmission is made of the pins and bushes located in the holes of the planetary gears. The influence of the number and geometry of the elements on the forces and occuring in the holes of the planetary gears has been presented. Therefore, the properly defined geometry of the gear and of the material of which the gear is made is crucial for the safe operation of the planetary cycloidal transmission.

The effects of mass and metallicity upon planetary nebula formation

Science.gov (United States)

Papp, K. A.; Purton, C. R.; Kwok, S.

1983-05-01

A parameterized function is constructed which describes the possible dependence of planetary nebula formation upon metal abundance and stellar mass. Data on galaxies in the Local Group compared with predictions made from the parameterized function indicate that heavy element abundance is the principal agent influencing the formation of planetary nebulae; stars which are rich in heavy elements are the progenitors of planetary nebulae. This analysis, when compared with the observations, argues for a modest degree of pre-enrichment in a few of the sample galaxies. The heavy element dependence of planetary nebula formation also accounts for the deficit of planetary nebulae in the nuclei of NGC 221 and NGC 224, and in the bulge of our Galaxy.

Lay and Expert Perceptions of Planetary Protection

Science.gov (United States)

Race, Margaret S.; MacGregor, Donald G.; Slovic, Paul

2000-01-01

As space scientists and engineers plan new missions to Mars and other planets in our solar system, they will face critical questions about the potential for biological contamination of planetary surfaces. In a society that places ever-increasing importance on the role of public involvement in science and technology policy, questions about risks of biological contamination will be examined and debated in the media, and will lead to the formation of public perceptions of planetary-contamination risks. These perceptions will, over time, form an important input to the development of space policy. Previous research in public and expert perceptions of technological risks and hazards has shown that many of the problems faced by risk-management organizations are the result of differing perceptions of risk (and risk management) between the general public and scientific and technical experts. These differences manifest themselves both as disagreements about the definition (and level) of risk associated with a scientific, technological or industrial enterprise, and as distrust about the ability of risk-management organizations (both public and private) to adequately protect people's health and safety. This report presents the results of a set of survey studies designed to reveal perceptions of planetary exploration and protection from a wide range of respondents, including both members of the general public and experts in the life sciences. The potential value of this research lies in what it reveals about perceptions of risk and benefit that could improve risk-management policies and practices. For example, efforts to communicate with the public about Mars sample return missions could benefit from an understanding of the specific concerns that nonscientists have about such a mission by suggesting areas of potential improvement in public education and information. Assessment of both public and expert perceptions of risk can also be used to provide an advanced signal of

Standards-Based Open-Source Planetary Map Server: Lunaserv

Science.gov (United States)

Estes, N. M.; Silva, V. H.; Bowley, K. S.; Lanjewar, K. K.; Robinson, M. S.

2018-04-01

Lunaserv is a planetary capable Web Map Service developed by the LROC SOC. It enables researchers to serve their own planetary data to a wide variety of GIS clients without any additional processing or download steps.

Study on Cracking Mechanism of Hardened Planetary frame

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Xinghui

2017-09-01

Planetary carrier made by 45 steel appear quenching crack, which is analyzed in chemical composition, hardness test and metallographic microscopic structure. The reasons of quenching crack of planetary gear include the unreasonable structure of the planetary carrier, thinner annular wall on the base of the upper part, and in dangerous area of the 45 steel in the process of quenching. The faster cooling rate of quenching results in a centripetal stress with the thick-wall part, which is greater than the ultimate bearing capacity of the material.

Planetary Cartography - Activities and Current Challenges

Science.gov (United States)

Nass, Andrea; Di, Kaichang; Elgner, Stephan; van Gasselt, Stephan; Hare, Trent; Hargitai, Henrik; Karachevtseva, Irina; Kereszturi, Akos; Kersten, Elke; Kokhanov, Alexander; Manaud, Nicolas; Roatsch, Thomas; Rossi, Angelo Pio; Skinner, James, Jr.; Wählisch, Marita

2018-05-01

Maps are one of the most important tools for communicating geospatial information between producers and receivers. Geospatial data, tools, contributions in geospatial sciences, and the communication of information and transmission of knowledge are matter of ongoing cartographic research. This applies to all topics and objects located on Earth or on any other body in our Solar System. In planetary science, cartography and mapping have a history dating back to the roots of telescopic space exploration and are now facing new technological and organizational challenges with the rise of new missions, new global initiatives, organizations and opening research markets. The focus of this contribution is to introduce the community to the field of planetary cartography and its historic foundation, to highlight some of the organizations involved and to emphasize challenges that Planetary Cartography has to face today and in the near future.

Planetary Data Systems (PDS) Imaging Node Atlas II

Science.gov (United States)

Stanboli, Alice; McAuley, James M.

2013-01-01

The Planetary Image Atlas (PIA) is a Rich Internet Application (RIA) that serves planetary imaging data to the science community and the general public. PIA also utilizes the USGS Unified Planetary Coordinate system (UPC) and the on-Mars map server. The Atlas was designed to provide the ability to search and filter through greater than 8 million planetary image files. This software is a three-tier Web application that contains a search engine backend (MySQL, JAVA), Web service interface (SOAP) between server and client, and a GWT Google Maps API client front end. This application allows for the search, retrieval, and download of planetary images and associated meta-data from the following missions: 2001 Mars Odyssey, Cassini, Galileo, LCROSS, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Exploration Rover, Mars Express, Magellan, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MESSENGER, Phoe nix, Viking Lander, Viking Orbiter, and Voyager. The Atlas utilizes the UPC to translate mission-specific coordinate systems into a unified coordinate system, allowing the end user to query across missions of similar targets. If desired, the end user can also use a mission-specific view of the Atlas. The mission-specific views rely on the same code base. This application is a major improvement over the initial version of the Planetary Image Atlas. It is a multi-mission search engine. This tool includes both basic and advanced search capabilities, providing a product search tool to interrogate the collection of planetary images. This tool lets the end user query information about each image, and ignores the data that the user has no interest in. Users can reduce the number of images to look at by defining an area of interest with latitude and longitude ranges.

Access and scientific exploitation of planetary plasma datasets with the CDPP/AMDA web-based tool

Science.gov (United States)

Andre, Nicolas

2012-07-01

The field of planetary sciences has greatly expanded in recent years with space missions orbiting around most of the planets of our Solar System. The growing amount and wealth of data available make it difficult for scientists to exploit data coming from many sources that can initially be heterogeneous in their organization, description and format. It is an important objective of the Europlanet-RI (supported by EU within FP7) to add value to space missions by significantly contributing to the effective scientific exploitation of collected data; to enable space researchers to take full advantage of the potential value of data sets. To this end and to enhance the science return from space missions, innovative tools have to be developed and offered to the community. AMDA (Automated Multi-Dataset Analysis, http://cdpp-amda.cesr.fr/) is a web-based facility developed at CDPP Toulouse in France (http://cdpp.cesr.fr) for on line analysis of space physics data (heliosphere, magnetospheres, planetary environments) coming from either its local database or distant ones. AMDA has been recently integrated as a service to the scientific community for the Plasma Physics thematic node of the Europlanet-RI IDIS (Integrated and Distributed Information Service, http://www.europlanet-idis.fi/) activities, in close cooperation with IWF Graz (http://europlanet-plasmanode.oeaw.ac.at/index.php?id=9). We will report the status of our current technical and scientific efforts to integrate in the local database of AMDA various planetary plasma datasets (at Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth and Moon, Jupiter, Saturn) from heterogeneous sources, including NASA/Planetary Data System (http://ppi.pds.nasa.gov/). We will also present our prototype Virtual Observatory activities to connect the AMDA tool to the IVOA Aladin astrophysical tool to enable pluridisciplinary studies of giant planet auroral emissions. This presentation will be done on behalf of the CDPP Team and Europlanet-RI IDIS plasma node

Interoperability in planetary research for geospatial data analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Hare, Trent M.; Rossi, Angelo P.; Frigeri, Alessandro; Marmo, Chiara

2018-01-01

For more than a decade there has been a push in the planetary science community to support interoperable methods for accessing and working with geospatial data. Common geospatial data products for planetary research include image mosaics, digital elevation or terrain models, geologic maps, geographic location databases (e.g., craters, volcanoes) or any data that can be tied to the surface of a planetary body (including moons, comets or asteroids). Several U.S. and international cartographic research institutions have converged on mapping standards that embrace standardized geospatial image formats, geologic mapping conventions, U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) cartographic and metadata standards, and notably on-line mapping services as defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). The latter includes defined standards such as the OGC Web Mapping Services (simple image maps), Web Map Tile Services (cached image tiles), Web Feature Services (feature streaming), Web Coverage Services (rich scientific data streaming), and Catalog Services for the Web (data searching and discoverability). While these standards were developed for application to Earth-based data, they can be just as valuable for planetary domain. Another initiative, called VESPA (Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access), will marry several of the above geoscience standards and astronomy-based standards as defined by International Virtual Observatory Alliance (IVOA). This work outlines the current state of interoperability initiatives in use or in the process of being researched within the planetary geospatial community.

Visualization of Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion

Science.gov (United States)

Lu, Meishu; Su, Jun; Wang, Weiguo; Lu, Jianlong

2017-01-01

For this article, we use a 3D printer to print a surface similar to universal gravitation for demonstrating and investigating Kepler's laws of planetary motion describing the motion of a small ball on the surface. This novel experimental method allows Kepler's laws of planetary motion to be visualized and will contribute to improving the…

Laboratory simulations of planetary surfaces: Understanding regolith physical properties from remote photopolarimetric observations

Science.gov (United States)

Nelson, Robert M.; Boryta, Mark D.; Hapke, Bruce W.; Manatt, Kenneth S.; Shkuratov, Yuriy; Psarev, V.; Vandervoort, Kurt; Kroner, Desire; Nebedum, Adaze; Vides, Christina L.; Quiñones, John

2018-03-01

We present reflectance and polarization phase curve measurements of highly reflective planetary regolith analogues having physical characteristics expected on atmosphereless solar system bodies (ASSBs) such as a eucritic asteroids or icy satellites. We used a goniometric photopolarimeter (GPP) of novel design to study thirteen well-sorted particle size fractions of aluminum oxide (Al2O3). The sample suite included particle sizes larger than, approximately equal to, and smaller than the wavelength of the incident monochromatic radiation (λ = 635 nm). The observed phase angle, α, was 0.056 o ∼95%). The incident radiation has a very high probability of being multiply scattered before being backscattered toward the incident direction or ultimately absorbed. The five smallest particle sizes exhibited extremely high void space (> ∼95%). The reflectance phase curves for all particle size fractions show a pronounced non-linear reflectance increase with decreasing phase angle at α∼ ∼1 we detect no polarization. This polarization behavior is distinct from that observed in low albedo solar system objects such as the Moon and asteroids and for absorbing materials in the laboratory. We suggest this behavior arises because photons that are backscattered have a high probability of having interacted with two or more particles, thus giving rise to the CB process. These results may explain the unusual negative polarization behavior observed near small phase angles reported for several decades on highly reflective ASSBs such as the asteroids 44 Nysa, 64 Angelina and the Galilean satellites Io, Europa and Ganymede. Our results suggest these ASSB regoliths scatter electromagnetic radiation as if they were extremely fine grained with void space > ∼95%, and grain sizes of the order geo-engineering, particularly to suggestions that earth's radiation balance can be modified by injecting Al2O3 particulates into the stratosphere thereby offsetting the effect of anthropogenic

Abundance determinations in HII regions and planetary nebulae

OpenAIRE

Stasinska, Grazyna

2002-01-01

The methods of abundance determinations in HII regions and planetary nebulae are described, with emphasis on the underlying assumptions and inherent problems. Recent results on abundances in Galactic HII regions and in Galactic and extragalactic Planetary Nebulae are reviewed.

The signatures of the parental cluster on field planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Maxwell Xu; Portegies Zwart, Simon; van Elteren, Arjen

2018-03-01

Due to the high stellar densities in young clusters, planetary systems formed in these environments are likely to have experienced perturbations from encounters with other stars. We carry out direct N-body simulations of multiplanet systems in star clusters to study the combined effects of stellar encounters and internal planetary dynamics. These planetary systems eventually become part of the Galactic field population as the parental cluster dissolves, which is where most presently known exoplanets are observed. We show that perturbations induced by stellar encounters lead to distinct signatures in the field planetary systems, most prominently, the excited orbital inclinations and eccentricities. Planetary systems that form within the cluster's half-mass radius are more prone to such perturbations. The orbital elements are most strongly excited in the outermost orbit, but the effect propagates to the entire planetary system through secular evolution. Planet ejections may occur long after a stellar encounter. The surviving planets in these reduced systems tend to have, on average, higher inclinations and larger eccentricities compared to systems that were perturbed less strongly. As soon as the parental star cluster dissolves, external perturbations stop affecting the escaped planetary systems, and further evolution proceeds on a relaxation time-scale. The outer regions of these ejected planetary systems tend to relax so slowly that their state carries the memory of their last strong encounter in the star cluster. Regardless of the stellar density, we observe a robust anticorrelation between multiplicity and mean inclination/eccentricity. We speculate that the `Kepler dichotomy' observed in field planetary systems is a natural consequence of their early evolution in the parental cluster.

Planetary Society

Science.gov (United States)

Murdin, P.

2000-11-01

Carl Sagan, Bruce Murray and Louis Friedman founded the non-profit Planetary Society in 1979 to advance the exploration of the solar system and to continue the search for extraterrestrial life. The Society has its headquarters in Pasadena, California, but is international in scope, with 100 000 members worldwide, making it the largest space interest group in the world. The Society funds a var...

The New Planetary Science Archive (PSA): Exploration and Discovery of Scientific Datasets from ESA's Planetary Missions

Science.gov (United States)

Heather, David; Besse, Sebastien; Vallat, Claire; Barbarisi, Isa; Arviset, Christophe; De Marchi, Guido; Barthelemy, Maud; Coia, Daniela; Costa, Marc; Docasal, Ruben; Fraga, Diego; Grotheer, Emmanuel; Lim, Tanya; MacFarlane, Alan; Martinez, Santa; Rios, Carlos; Vallejo, Fran; Saiz, Jaime

2017-04-01

The Planetary Science Archive (PSA) is the European Space Agency's (ESA) repository of science data from all planetary science and exploration missions. The PSA provides access to scientific datasets through various interfaces at http://psa.esa.int. All datasets are scientifically peer-reviewed by independent scientists, and are compliant with the Planetary Data System (PDS) standards. The PSA is currently implementing a number of significant improvements, mostly driven by the evolution of the PDS standard, and the growing need for better interfaces and advanced applications to support science exploitation. As of the end of 2016, the PSA is hosting data from all of ESA's planetary missions. This includes ESA's first planetary mission Giotto that encountered comet 1P/Halley in 1986 with a flyby at 800km. Science data from Venus Express, Mars Express, Huygens and the SMART-1 mission are also all available at the PSA. The PSA also contains all science data from Rosetta, which explored comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and asteroids Steins and Lutetia. The year 2016 has seen the arrival of the ExoMars 2016 data in the archive. In the upcoming years, at least three new projects are foreseen to be fully archived at the PSA. The BepiColombo mission is scheduled for launch in 2018. Following that, the ExoMars Rover Surface Platform (RSP) in 2020, and then the JUpiter ICy moon Explorer (JUICE). All of these will archive their data in the PSA. In addition, a few ground-based support programmes are also available, especially for the Venus Express and Rosetta missions. The newly designed PSA will enhance the user experience and will significantly reduce the complexity for users to find their data promoting one-click access to the scientific datasets with more customized views when needed. This includes a better integration with Planetary GIS analysis tools and Planetary interoperability services (search and retrieve data, supporting e.g. PDAP, EPN-TAP). It will also be up

NASA Johnson Space Center's Planetary Sample Analysis and Mission Science (PSAMS) Laboratory: A National Facility for Planetary Research

Science.gov (United States)

Draper, D. S.

2016-01-01

NASA Johnson Space Center's (JSC's) Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division, part of the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate, houses a unique combination of laboratories and other assets for conducting cutting edge planetary research. These facilities have been accessed for decades by outside scientists, most at no cost and on an informal basis. ARES has thus provided substantial leverage to many past and ongoing science projects at the national and international level. Here we propose to formalize that support via an ARES/JSC Plane-tary Sample Analysis and Mission Science Laboratory (PSAMS Lab). We maintain three major research capa-bilities: astromaterial sample analysis, planetary process simulation, and robotic-mission analog research. ARES scientists also support planning for eventual human ex-ploration missions, including astronaut geological training. We outline our facility's capabilities and its potential service to the community at large which, taken together with longstanding ARES experience and expertise in curation and in applied mission science, enable multi-disciplinary planetary research possible at no other institution. Comprehensive campaigns incorporating sample data, experimental constraints, and mission science data can be conducted under one roof.

Interoperability in the Planetary Science Archive (PSA)

Science.gov (United States)

Rios Diaz, C.

2017-09-01

The protocols and standards currently being supported by the recently released new version of the Planetary Science Archive at this time are the Planetary Data Access Protocol (PDAP), the EuroPlanet- Table Access Protocol (EPN-TAP) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. We explore these protocols in more detail providing scientifically useful examples of their usage within the PSA.

The diversity of planetary system architectures: contrasting theory with observations

Science.gov (United States)

Miguel, Y.; Guilera, O. M.; Brunini, A.

2011-10-01

In order to explain the observed diversity of planetary system architectures and relate this primordial diversity to the initial properties of the discs where they were born, we develop a semi-analytical model for computing planetary system formation. The model is based on the core instability model for the gas accretion of the embryos and the oligarchic growth regime for the accretion of the solid cores. Two regimes of planetary migration are also included. With this model, we consider different initial conditions based on recent results of protoplanetary disc observations to generate a variety of planetary systems. These systems are analysed statistically, exploring the importance of several factors that define the planetary system birth environment. We explore the relevance of the mass and size of the disc, metallicity, mass of the central star and time-scale of gaseous disc dissipation in defining the architecture of the planetary system. We also test different values of some key parameters of our model to find out which factors best reproduce the diverse sample of observed planetary systems. We assume different migration rates and initial disc profiles, in the context of a surface density profile motivated by similarity solutions. According to this, and based on recent protoplanetary disc observational data, we predict which systems are the most common in the solar neighbourhood. We intend to unveil whether our Solar system is a rarity or whether more planetary systems like our own are expected to be found in the near future. We also analyse which is the more favourable environment for the formation of habitable planets. Our results show that planetary systems with only terrestrial planets are the most common, being the only planetary systems formed when considering low-metallicity discs, which also represent the best environment for the development of rocky, potentially habitable planets. We also found that planetary systems like our own are not rare in the

The final fate of planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Gaensicke, Boris

2015-12-01

The discovery of the first extra-solar planet around a main-sequence star in 1995 has changed the way we think about the Universe: our solar system is not unique. Twenty years later, we know that planetary systems are ubiquitous, orbit stars spanning a wide range in mass, and form in an astonishing variety of architectures. Yet, one fascinating aspect of planetary systems has received relatively little attention so far: their ultimate fate.Most planet hosts will eventually evolve into white dwarfs, Earth-sized stellar embers, and the outer parts of their planetary systems (in the solar system, Mars and beyond) can survive largely intact for billions of years. While scattered and tidally disrupted planetesimals are directly detected at a small number of white dwarfs in the form infrared excess, the most powerful probe for detecting evolved planetary systems is metal pollution of the otherwise pristine H/He atmospheres.I will present the results of a multi-cycle HST survey that has obtained COS observations of 136 white dwarfs. These ultraviolet spectra are exquisitely sensitive to the presence of metals contaminating the white atmosphere. Our sophisticated model atmosphere analysis demonstrates that at least 27% of all targets are currently accreting planetary debris, and an additional 29% have very likely done so in the past. These numbers suggest that planet formation around A-stars (the dominant progenitors of today's white dwarf population) is similarly efficient as around FGK stars.In addition to post-main sequence planetary system demographics, spectroscopy of the debris-polluted white dwarf atmospheres provides a direct window into the bulk composition of exo-planetesimals, analogous to the way we use of meteorites to determine solar-system abundances. Our ultraviolet spectroscopy is particularly sensitive to the detection of Si, a dominant rock-forming species, and we identify up to ten additional volatile and refractory elements in the most strongly

Influence of stellar duplicity on the form of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kolesnik, I.G.; Pilyugin, L.S.

1986-01-01

Formation of planetary nebulae's spatial structures is considered. Simple expression for angular distribution of density in planetary nebulae is obtained. Bipolar structures are formed effectively in binary systems in which the velocity of the expanding shell around the main star is smaller than the orbital velocity of the satellite. Masses of satellites lie in the range 0.1-0.4Msub(sun). Theoretical isophotal contour map for the model of the planetary nebula NGC 3587 is consistent with observational data. It is shown that central stars of planetary nebulae are usually binary systems

Post-main-sequence planetary system evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Veras, Dimitri

2016-01-01

The fates of planetary systems provide unassailable insights into their formation and represent rich cross-disciplinary dynamical laboratories. Mounting observations of post-main-sequence planetary systems necessitate a complementary level of theoretical scrutiny. Here, I review the diverse dynamical processes which affect planets, asteroids, comets and pebbles as their parent stars evolve into giant branch, white dwarf and neutron stars. This reference provides a foundation for the interpretation and modelling of currently known systems and upcoming discoveries. PMID:26998326

Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is used to uniquely identify a feature on the surface of a planet or satellite so that the feature can be...

Radiometric Measurements of the Thermal Conductivity of Complex Planetary-like Materials

Science.gov (United States)

Piqueux, S.; Christensen, P. R.

2012-12-01

Planetary surface temperatures and thermal inertias are controlled by the physical and compositional characteristics of the surface layer material, which result from current and past geological activity. For this reason, temperature measurements are often acquired because they provide fundamental constraints on the geological history and habitability. Examples of regolith properties affecting surface temperatures and inertias are: grain sizes and mixture ratios, solid composition in the case of ices, presence of cement between grains, regolith porosity, grain roughness, material layering etc.. Other important factors include volatile phase changes, and endogenic or exogenic heat sources (i.e. geothermal heat flow, impact-related heat, biological activity etc.). In the case of Mars, the multitude of instruments observing the surface temperature at different spatial and temporal resolutions (i.e. IRTM, Thermoskan, TES, MiniTES, THEMIS, MCS, REMS, etc.) in conjunction with other instruments allows us to probe and characterize the thermal properties of the surface layer with an unprecedented resolution. While the derivation of thermal inertia values from temperature measurements is routinely performed by well-established planetary regolith numerical models, constraining the physical properties of the surface layer from thermal inertia values requires the additional step of laboratory measurements. The density and specific heat are usually constant and sufficiently well known for common geological materials, but the bulk thermal conductivity is highly variable as a function of the physical characteristics of the regolith. Most laboratory designs do not allow an investigation of the thermal conductivity of complex regolith configurations similar to those observed on planetary surfaces (i.e. cemented material, large grains, layered material, and temperature effects) because the samples are too small and need to be soft to insert heating or measuring devices. For this

Vibration Based Diagnosis for Planetary Gearboxes Using an Analytical Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liu Hong

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The application of conventional vibration based diagnostic techniques to planetary gearboxes is a challenge because of the complexity of frequency components in the measured spectrum, which is the result of relative motions between the rotary planets and the fixed accelerometer. In practice, since the fault signatures are usually contaminated by noises and vibrations from other mechanical components of gearboxes, the diagnostic efficacy may further deteriorate. Thus, it is essential to develop a novel vibration based scheme to diagnose gear failures for planetary gearboxes. Following a brief literature review, the paper begins with the introduction of an analytical model of planetary gear-sets developed by the authors in previous works, which can predict the distinct behaviors of fault introduced sidebands. This analytical model is easy to implement because the only prerequisite information is the basic geometry of the planetary gear-set. Afterwards, an automated diagnostic scheme is proposed to cope with the challenges associated with the characteristic configuration of planetary gearboxes. The proposed vibration based scheme integrates the analytical model, a denoising algorithm, and frequency domain indicators into one synergistic system for the detection and identification of damaged gear teeth in planetary gearboxes. Its performance is validated with the dynamic simulations and the experimental data from a planetary gearbox test rig.

Artificial Intelligence in planetary spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Waldmann, Ingo

2017-10-01

The field of exoplanetary spectroscopy is as fast moving as it is new. Analysing currently available observations of exoplanetary atmospheres often invoke large and correlated parameter spaces that can be difficult to map or constrain. This is true for both: the data analysis of observations as well as the theoretical modelling of their atmospheres.Issues of low signal-to-noise data and large, non-linear parameter spaces are nothing new and commonly found in many fields of engineering and the physical sciences. Recent years have seen vast improvements in statistical data analysis and machine learning that have revolutionised fields as diverse as telecommunication, pattern recognition, medical physics and cosmology.In many aspects, data mining and non-linearity challenges encountered in other data intensive fields are directly transferable to the field of extrasolar planets. In this conference, I will discuss how deep neural networks can be designed to facilitate solving said issues both in exoplanet atmospheres as well as for atmospheres in our own solar system. I will present a deep belief network, RobERt (Robotic Exoplanet Recognition), able to learn to recognise exoplanetary spectra and provide artificial intelligences to state-of-the-art atmospheric retrieval algorithms. Furthermore, I will present a new deep convolutional network that is able to map planetary surface compositions using hyper-spectral imaging and demonstrate its uses on Cassini-VIMS data of Saturn.

Ideas for Testing of Planetary Gear Sets of Automotive Transmissions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Achtenová Gabriela

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The article describes the concept of modular stand, where is possible to provide tests of gear pairs with fixed axes from mechanical automotive gearboxes, as well as tests of separate planetary sets from automatic gearboxes. Special attention in the article will be paid to the variant dedicated for testing of planetary gear sets. This variant is particularly interesting because: 1 it is rarely described in the literature, and 2 this topology allows big simplification with respect to testing of standard gearwheels. In the planetary closed-loop stand it is possible to directly link two identical planetary sets. Without any bracing flange or other connecting clutches, shafts or gear sets, just two planetary sets face-to-face will be assembled and connected to the electric motor.

Influence of Planetary Protection Guidelines on Waste Management Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Hogan, John A.; Fisher, John W.; Levri, Julie A.; Wignarajah, Kanapathipi; Race, Margaret S.; Stabekis, Perry D.; Rummel, John D.

2005-01-01

Newly outlined missions in the Space Exploration Initiative include extended human habitation on Mars. During these missions, large amounts of waste materials will be generated in solid, liquid and gaseous form. Returning these wastes to Earth will be extremely costly, and will therefore likely remain on Mars. Untreated, these wastes are a reservoir of live/dead organisms and molecules considered to be "biomarkers" i.e., indicators of life). If released to the planetary surface, these materials can potentially confound exobiology experiments and disrupt Martian ecology indefinitely (if existent). Waste management systems must therefore be specifically designed to control release of problematic materials both during the active phase of the mission, and for any specified post-mission duration. To effectively develop waste management requirements for Mars missions, planetary protection guidelines must first be established. While previous policies for Apollo lunar missions exist, it is anticipated that the increased probability of finding evidence of life on Mars, as well as the lengthy mission durations will initially lead to more conservative planetary protection measures. To facilitate the development of overall requirements for both waste management and planetary protection for future missions, a workshop was conducted to identify how these two areas interface, and to establish a preliminary set of planetary protection guidelines that address waste management operations. This paper provides background regarding past and current planetary protection and waste management issues, and their interactions. A summary of the recommended planetary protection guidelines, anticipated ramifications and research needs for waste management system design for both forward (Mars) and backward (Earth) contamination is also provided.

Elpasolite Planetary Ice and Composition Spectrometer (EPICS): A Low-Resource Combined Gamma-Ray and Neutron Spectrometer for Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Stonehill, L. C.; Coupland, D. D. S.; Dallmann, N. A.; Feldman, W. C.; Mesick, K.; Nowicki, S.; Storms, S.

2017-12-01

The Elpasolite Planetary Ice and Composition Spectrometer (EPICS) is an innovative, low-resource gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer for planetary science missions, enabled by new scintillator and photodetector technologies. Neutrons and gamma rays are produced by cosmic ray interactions with planetary bodies and their subsequent interactions with the near-surface materials produce distinctive energy spectra. Measuring these spectra reveals details of the planetary near-surface composition that are not accessible through any other phenomenology. EPICS will be the first planetary science instrument to fully integrate the neutron and gamma-ray spectrometers. This integration is enabled by the elpasolite family of scintillators that offer gamma-ray spectroscopy energy resolutions as good as 3% FWHM at 662 keV, thermal neutron sensitivity, and the ability to distinguish gamma-ray and neutron signals via pulse shape differences. This new detection technology will significantly reduce size, weight, and power (SWaP) while providing similar neutron performance and improved gamma energy resolution compared to previous scintillator instruments, and the ability to monitor the cosmic-ray source term. EPICS will detect scintillation light with silicon photomultipliers rather than traditional photomultiplier tubes, offering dramatic additional SWaP reduction. EPICS is under development with Los Alamos National Laboratory internal research and development funding. Here we report on the EPICS design, provide an update on the current status of the EPICS development, and discuss the expected sensitivity and performance of EPICS in several potential missions to airless bodies.

SPEX: the Spectropolarimeter for Planetary Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Rietjens, J. H. H.; Snik, F.; Stam, D. M.; Smit, J. M.; van Harten, G.; Keller, C. U.; Verlaan, A. L.; Laan, E. C.; ter Horst, R.; Navarro, R.; Wielinga, K.; Moon, S. G.; Voors, R.

2017-11-01

We present SPEX, the Spectropolarimeter for Planetary Exploration, which is a compact, robust and low-mass spectropolarimeter designed to operate from an orbiting or in situ platform. Its purpose is to simultaneously measure the radiance and the state (degree and angle) of linear polarization of sunlight that has been scattered in a planetary atmosphere and/or reflected by a planetary surface with high accuracy. The degree of linear polarization is extremely sensitive to the microphysical properties of atmospheric or surface particles (such as size, shape, and composition), and to the vertical distribution of atmospheric particles, such as cloud top altitudes. Measurements as those performed by SPEX are therefore crucial and often the only tool for disentangling the many parameters that describe planetary atmospheres and surfaces. SPEX uses a novel, passive method for its radiance and polarization observations that is based on a carefully selected combination of polarization optics. This method, called spectral modulation, is the modulation of the radiance spectrum in both amplitude and phase by the degree and angle of linear polarization, respectively. The polarization optics consists of an achromatic quarter-wave retarder, an athermal multiple-order retarder, and a polarizing beam splitter. We will show first results obtained with the recently developed prototype of the SPEX instrument, and present a performance analysis based on a dedicated vector radiative transport model together with a recently developed SPEX instrument simulator.

Remote Sensing Data Analytics for Planetary Science with PlanetServer/EarthServer

Science.gov (United States)

Rossi, Angelo Pio; Figuera, Ramiro Marco; Flahaut, Jessica; Martinot, Melissa; Misev, Dimitar; Baumann, Peter; Pham Huu, Bang; Besse, Sebastien

2016-04-01

Planetary Science datasets, beyond the change in the last two decades from physical volumes to internet-accessible archives, still face the problem of large-scale processing and analytics (e.g. Rossi et al., 2014, Gaddis and Hare, 2015). PlanetServer, the Planetary Science Data Service of the EC-funded EarthServer-2 project (#654367) tackles the planetary Big Data analytics problem with an array database approach (Baumann et al., 2014). It is developed to serve a large amount of calibrated, map-projected planetary data online, mainly through Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Coverage Processing Service (WCPS) (e.g. Rossi et al., 2014; Oosthoek et al., 2013; Cantini et al., 2014). The focus of the H2020 evolution of PlanetServer is still on complex multidimensional data, particularly hyperspectral imaging and topographic cubes and imagery. In addition to hyperspectral and topographic from Mars (Rossi et al., 2014), the use of WCPS is applied to diverse datasets on the Moon, as well as Mercury. Other Solar System Bodies are going to be progressively available. Derived parameters such as summary products and indices can be produced through WCPS queries, as well as derived imagery colour combination products, dynamically generated and accessed also through OGC Web Coverage Service (WCS). Scientific questions translated into queries can be posed to a large number of individual coverages (data products), locally, regionally or globally. The new PlanetServer system uses the the Open Source Nasa WorldWind (e.g. Hogan, 2011) virtual globe as visualisation engine, and the array database Rasdaman Community Edition as core server component. Analytical tools and client components of relevance for multiple communities and disciplines are shared across service such as the Earth Observation and Marine Data Services of EarthServer. The Planetary Science Data Service of EarthServer is accessible on http://planetserver.eu. All its code base is going to be available on GitHub, on

Evolution of planetary nebula nuclei

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shaw, R.A.

1985-01-01

The evolution of planetary nebula nuclei (PNNs) is examined with the aid of the most recent available stellar evolution calculations and new observations of these objects. Their expected distribution in the log L-log T plane is calculated based upon the stellar evolutionary models of Paczynski, Schoenberner and Iben, the initial mass function derived by Miller and Scalo, and various assumptions concerning mass loss during post-main sequence evolution. The distribution is found to be insensitive both to the assumed range of main-sequence progenitor mass and to reasonable variations in the age and the star forming history of the galactic disk. Rather, the distribution is determined by the strong dependence of the rate of stellar evolution upon core mass, the steepness of the initial mass function, and to a lesser extent the finite lifetime of an observable planetary nebula. The theoretical distributions are rather different than any of those inferred from earlier observations. Possible observational selection effects that may be responsible are examined, as well as the intrinsic uncertainties associated with the theoretical model predictions. An extensive photometric and smaller photographic survey of southern hemisphere planetary nebulae (PNs) is presented

An Overview of the Planetary Data System Roadmap Study for 2017 - 2026

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Thomas H.; McNutt, Ralph L.; Gaddis, Lisa; Law, Emily; Beyer, Ross A.; Crombie, Kate; Ebel, Denton; Ghosh, Amitahba; Grayzeck, Edwin J.; Paganelli, Flora; Raugh, Anne C.; Stein, Thomas; Tiscareno, Matthew S.; Weber, Renee; E Banks, Maria; Powell, Kathryn

2017-10-01

NASA’s Planetary Data System (PDS) is the formal archive of >1.2 petabytes of data from planetary exploration, science, and research. Initiated in 1989 to address an overall lack of attention to mission data documentation, access, and archiving, the PDS has since evolved into an online collection of digital data managed and served by a federation of 6 science discipline nodes and 2 technical support nodes. Several ad-hoc mission-oriented data nodes also provide complex data interfaces and access for the duration of their missions.The new PDS Roadmap Study for 2017-2026 involved 15 planetary science community members who collectively prepared a report summarizing the results of an intensive examination of the current state of the PDS and its organization, management, practices, and data holdings (https://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/roadmap/PlanetaryDataSystemRMS17-26_20jun17.pdf). The report summarizes PDS history, its functions and characteristics, and its present form; also included are extensive references and documentary appendices. The report recognizes that as a complex evolving system, the PDS must respond to new pressures and opportunities. The report provides details on challenges now facing the PDS, 19 detailed findings and suggested remediations that could be used to respond to these findings, and a summary of the potential future of planetary data archiving. These findings cover topics such as user needs and expectations, data usability and discoverability (i.e., metadata, data access, documentation, and training), tools and file formats, use of current information technologies, and responses to increases in data volume, variety, complexity, and number of data providers. In addition, the study addresses the possibility of archiving software, laboratory data, and physical samples. Finally, the report discusses the current structure and governance of PDS and the impact of this on how archive growth, technology, and new developments are enabled and managed within

Nuclear physics analyses in lunar and planetary investigations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Surkov, Yu.A.

1984-01-01

The advances of space technology ushered in a new era in the development of man's ideas about the solar system. The flights of space vehicles to moon, Venus, Mars and other planets made it possible to obtain quite new information on the composition, structure and properties of matter in the solar system. In these studies a prominent role is played by remote and contact nuclear physics methods of analyzing extraterrestrial matter - gamma spectrometry, X-ray spectrometry, alpha spectrometry and neutron spectrometry. At present practically any space vehicle bound for planets carries scientific instrumentation based on nuclear physics methods of analysis. The use of gamma and X-ray spectroscopy for obtaining information about composition, structure and properties of the matter of the moon and planets is reviewed. (author)

Design Tools for Cost-Effective Implementation of Planetary Protection Requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Hamlin, Louise; Belz, Andrea; Evans, Michael; Kastner, Jason; Satter, Celeste; Spry, Andy

2006-01-01

Since the Viking missions to Mars in the 1970s, accounting for the costs associated with planetary protection implementation has not been done systematically during early project formulation phases, leading to unanticipated costs during subsequent implementation phases of flight projects. The simultaneous development of more stringent planetary protection requirements, resulting from new knowledge about the limits of life on Earth, together with current plans to conduct life-detection experiments on a number of different solar system target bodies motivates a systematic approach to integrating planetary protection requirements and mission design. A current development effort at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is aimed at integrating planetary protection requirements more fully into the early phases of mission architecture formulation and at developing tools to more rigorously predict associated cost and schedule impacts of architecture options chosen to meet planetary protection requirements.

Planetary Nomenclature: An Overview and Update for 2017

Science.gov (United States)

Gaither, Tenielle; Hayward, Rose; IAU Working GroupPlanetary System Nomenclature

2017-10-01

The task of naming planetary surface features, rings, and natural satellites is managed by the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN). There are currently 15,361 IAU-approved surface feature names on 41 planetary bodies, including moons and asteroids. The members of the WGPSN and its task groups have worked since the early 1970s to provide a clear, unambiguous system of planetary nomenclature that represents cultures and countries from all regions of Earth. WGPSN members include Rita Schulz (Chair) and 9 other members representing countries around the globe. The participation of knowledgeable scientists and experts in this process is vital to its success of the IAU WGPSN . Planetary nomenclature is a tool used to uniquely identify features on the surfaces of planets or satellites so they can be located, described, and discussed in publications, including peer-review journals, maps and conference presentations. Approved names are listed in the Transactions of the IAU and on the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature website. Any names currently in use that are not listed the Gazetteer are not official. Planetary names must adhere to rules and conventions established by the IAU WGPSN (see http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/Rules for the complete list). The gazetteer includes an online Name Request Form (http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/FeatureNameRequest) that can be used by members of the professional science community. Name requests are first reviewed by one of six task groups (Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Outer Solar System, and Small Bodies). After a task group has reviewed a proposal, it is submitted to the WGPSN. Allow four to six weeks for the review and approval process. Upon WGPSN approval, names are considered formally approved and it is then appropriate to use them in publications. Approved names are immediately entered into the database and shown on the website. Questions about the nomenclature

Magnetic Fields of Extrasolar Planets: Planetary Interiors and Habitability

Science.gov (United States)

Lazio, T. Joseph

2018-06-01

Ground-based observations showed that Jupiter's radio emission is linked to its planetary-scale magnetic field, and subsequent spacecraft observations have shown that most planets, and some moons, have or had a global magnetic field. Generated by internal dynamos, magnetic fields are one of the few remote sensing means of constraining the properties of planetary interiors. For the Earth, its magnetic field has been speculated to be partially responsible for its habitability, and knowledge of an extrasolar planet's magnetic field may be necessary to assess its habitability. The radio emission from Jupiter and other solar system planets is produced by an electron cyclotron maser, and detections of extrasolar planetary electron cyclotron masers will enable measurements of extrasolar planetary magnetic fields. Based on experience from the solar system, such observations will almost certainly require space-based observations, but they will also be guided by on-going and near-future ground-based observations.This work has benefited from the discussion and participants of the W. M. Keck Institute of Space Studies "Planetary Magnetic Fields: Planetary Interiors and Habitability" and content within a white paper submitted to the National Academy of Science Committee on Exoplanet Science Strategy. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Physical study of planets and satellites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mayer, C.H.; Young, A.T.; Belton, M.J.S.; Morrison, D.D.; Teifel, V.G.; Baum, W.A.; Dollfus, A.; Servajean, R.

1976-01-01

A critical review of progress made in the physical study of planets and satellites over the period 1973-1975 is presented. Summaries of recent research are followed by short notes on the IAU Planetary Data and Research Centers. (B.R.H.)

Time-dependent simulations of disk-embedded planetary atmospheres

Science.gov (United States)

Stökl, A.; Dorfi, E. A.

2014-03-01

At the early stages of evolution of planetary systems, young Earth-like planets still embedded in the protoplanetary disk accumulate disk gas gravitationally into planetary atmospheres. The established way to study such atmospheres are hydrostatic models, even though in many cases the assumption of stationarity is unlikely to be fulfilled. Furthermore, such models rely on the specification of a planetary luminosity, attributed to a continuous, highly uncertain accretion of planetesimals onto the surface of the solid core. We present for the first time time-dependent, dynamic simulations of the accretion of nebula gas into an atmosphere around a proto-planet and the evolution of such embedded atmospheres while integrating the thermal energy budget of the solid core. The spherical symmetric models computed with the TAPIR-Code (short for The adaptive, implicit RHD-Code) range from the surface of the rocky core up to the Hill radius where the surrounding protoplanetary disk provides the boundary conditions. The TAPIR-Code includes the hydrodynamics equations, gray radiative transport and convective energy transport. The results indicate that diskembedded planetary atmospheres evolve along comparatively simple outlines and in particular settle, dependent on the mass of the solid core, at characteristic surface temperatures and planetary luminosities, quite independent on numerical parameters and initial conditions. For sufficiently massive cores, this evolution ultimately also leads to runaway accretion and the formation of a gas planet.

Planetary Science Educational Materials for Out-of-School Time Educators

Science.gov (United States)

Barlow, Nadine G.; Clark, Joelle G.

2017-10-01

Planetary Learning that Advances the Nexus of Engineering, Technology, and Science (PLANETS) is a five-year NASA-funded (NNX16AC53A) interdisciplinary and cross-institutional partnership to develop and disseminate STEM out-of-school time (OST) curricular and professional development units that integrate planetary science, technology, and engineering. The Center for Science Teaching and Learning (CSTL) and Department of Physics and Astronomy (P&A) at Northern Arizona University, the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center (USGS ASC), and the Museum of Science Boston (MoS) are partners in developing, piloting, and researching the impact of three out-of-school time units. Planetary scientists at USGS ASC and P&A have developed two units for middle grades youth and one for upper elementary aged youth. The two middle school units focus on greywater recycling and remote sensing of planetary surfaces while the elementary unit centers on exploring space hazards. All units are designed for small teams of ~4 youth to work together to investigate materials, engineer tools to assist in the explorations, and utilize what they have learned to solve a problem. Youth participate in a final share-out with adults and other youth of what they learned and their solution to the problem. Curriculum pilot testing of the two middle school units has begun with out-of-school time educators. A needs assessment has been conducted nationwide among educators and evaluation of the curriculum units is being conducted by CSTL during the pilot testing. Based on data analysis, the project is developing and testing four tiers of professional support for OST educators. Tier 1 meets the immediate needs of OST educators to teach curriculum and include how-to videos and other direct support materials. Tier 2 provides additional content and pedagogical knowledge and includes short content videos designed to specifically address the content of the curriculum. Tier 3 elaborates on best practices

Simulations of GCR interactions within planetary bodies using GEANT4

Science.gov (United States)

Mesick, K.; Feldman, W. C.; Stonehill, L. C.; Coupland, D. D. S.

2017-12-01

On planetary bodies with little to no atmosphere, Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) can hit the body and produce neutrons primarily through nuclear spallation within the top few meters of the surfaces. These neutrons undergo further nuclear interactions with elements near the planetary surface and some will escape the surface and can be detected by landed or orbiting neutron radiation detector instruments. The neutron leakage signal at fast neutron energies provides a measure of average atomic mass of the near-surface material and in the epithermal and thermal energy ranges is highly sensitive to the presence of hydrogen. Gamma-rays can also escape the surface, produced at characteristic energies depending on surface composition, and can be detected by gamma-ray instruments. The intra-nuclear cascade (INC) that occurs when high-energy GCRs interact with elements within a planetary surface to produce the leakage neutron and gamma-ray signals is highly complex, and therefore Monte Carlo based radiation transport simulations are commonly used for predicting and interpreting measurements from planetary neutron and gamma-ray spectroscopy instruments. In the past, the simulation code that has been widely used for this type of analysis is MCNPX [1], which was benchmarked against data from the Lunar Neutron Probe Experiment (LPNE) on Apollo 17 [2]. In this work, we consider the validity of the radiation transport code GEANT4 [3], another widely used but open-source code, by benchmarking simulated predictions of the LPNE experiment to the Apollo 17 data. We consider the impact of different physics model options on the results, and show which models best describe the INC based on agreement with the Apollo 17 data. The success of this validation then gives us confidence in using GEANT4 to simulate GCR-induced neutron leakage signals on Mars in relevance to a re-analysis of Mars Odyssey Neutron Spectrometer data. References [1] D.B. Pelowitz, Los Alamos National Laboratory, LA-CP-05

Evaluating the biological potential in samples returned from planetary satellites and small solar system bodies: framework for decision making

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

National Research Council Staff; Space Studies Board; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; National Research Council; National Academy of Sciences

... from Planetary Satellites and Small Solar System Bodies Framework for Decision Making Task Group on Sample Return from Small Solar System Bodies Space Studies Board Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications National Research Council NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS Washington, D.C. 1998 i Copyrightthe true use are Please breaks...

MAVEN Observations of Escaping Planetary Ions from the Martian Atmosphere: Mass, Velocity, and Spatial Distributions

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Yaxue; Fang, Xiaohua; Brain, D. A.; McFadden, James P.; Halekas, Jasper; Connerney, Jack

2015-04-01

The Mars-solar wind interaction accelerates and transports planetary ions away from the Martian atmosphere through a number of processes, including ‘pick-up’ by electromagnetic fields. The MAVEN spacecraft has made routine observations of escaping planetary ions since its arrival at Mars in September 2014. The SupraThermal And Thermal Ion Composition (STATIC) instrument measures the ion energy, mass, and angular spectra. It has detected energetic planetary ions during most of the spacecraft orbits, which are attributed to the pick-up process. We found significant variations in the escaping ion mass and velocity distributions from the STATIC data, which can be explained by factors such as varying solar wind conditions, contributions of particles from different source locations and different phases during the pick-up process. We also study the spatial distributions of different planetary ion species, which can provide insight into the physics of ion escaping process and enhance our understanding of atmospheric erosion by the solar wind. Our results will be further interpreted within the context of the upstream solar wind conditions measured by the MAVEN Solar Wind Ion Analyzer (SWIA) instrument and the magnetic field environment measured by the Magnetometer (MAG) instrument. Our study shows that the ion spatial distribution in the Mars-Sun-Electric-Field (MSE) coordinate system and the velocity space distribution with respect to the local magnetic field line can be used to distinguish the ions escaping through the polar plume and those through the tail region. The contribution of the polar plume ion escape to the total escape rate will also be discussed.

Solar system astrophysics planetary atmospheres and the outer solar system

CERN Document Server

Milone, Eugene F

2008-01-01

Solar System Astrophysics opens with coverage of the atmospheres, ionospheres and magnetospheres of the Earth, Venus and Mars and the magnetosphere of Mercury. The book then provides an introduction to meteorology and treating the physics and chemistry of these areas in considerable detail. What follows are the structure, composition, particle environments, satellites, and rings of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, making abundant use of results from space probes. Solar System Astrophysics follows the history, orbits, structure, origin and demise of comets and the physics of meteors and provides a thorough treatment of meteorites, the asteroids and, in the outer solar system, the Kuiper Belt objects. The methods and results of extrasolar planet searches, the distinctions between stars, brown dwarfs, and planets, and the origins of planetary systems are examined. Historical introductions precede the development and discussion in most chapters. A series of challenges, useful as homework assignments or as foc...

Planetary Sciences Literature - Access and Discovery

Science.gov (United States)

Henneken, Edwin A.; ADS Team

2017-10-01

The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) has been around for over 2 decades, helping professional astronomers and planetary scientists navigate, without charge, through the increasingly complex environment of scholarly publications. As boundaries between disciplines dissolve and expand, the ADS provides powerful tools to help researchers discover useful information efficiently. In its new form, code-named ADS Bumblebee (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu), it may very well answer questions you didn't know you had! While the classic ADS (http://ads.harvard.edu) focuses mostly on searching basic metadata (author, title and abstract), today's ADS is best described as a an "aggregator" of scholarly resources relevant to the needs of researchers in astronomy and planetary sciences, and providing a discovery environment on top of this. In addition to indexing content from a variety of publishers, data and software archives, the ADS enriches its records by text-mining and indexing the full-text articles (about 4.7 million in total, with 130,000 from planetary science journals), enriching its metadata through the extraction of citations and acknowledgments. Recent technology developments include a new Application Programming Interface (API), a new user interface featuring a variety of visualizations and bibliometric analysis, and integration with ORCID services to support paper claiming. The new ADS provides powerful tools to help you find review papers on a given subject, prolific authors working on a subject and who they are collaborating with (within and outside their group) and papers most read by by people who read recent papers on the topic of your interest. These are just a couple of examples of the capabilities of the new ADS. We currently index most journals covering the planetary sciences and we are striving to include those journals most frequently cited by planetary science publications. The ADS is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory under NASA

The planetary scientist's companion

CERN Document Server

Lodders, Katharina

1998-01-01

A comprehensive and practical book of facts and data about the Sun, planets, asteroids, comets, meteorites, the Kuiper belt and Centaur objects in our solar system. Also covered are properties of nearby stars, the interstellar medium, and extra-solar planetary systems.

The APIS service : a tool for accessing value-added HST planetary auroral observations over 1997-2015

Science.gov (United States)

Lamy, L.; Henry, F.; Prangé, R.; Le Sidaner, P.

2015-10-01

The Auroral Planetary Imaging and Spectroscopy (APIS) service http://obspm.fr/apis/ provides an open and interactive access to processed auroral observations of the outer planets and their satellites. Such observations are of interest for a wide community at the interface between planetology, magnetospheric and heliospheric physics. APIS consists of (i) a high level database, built from planetary auroral observations acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) since 1997 with its mostly used Far-Ultraviolet spectro- imagers, (ii) a dedicated search interface aimed at browsing efficiently this database through relevant conditional search criteria (Figure 1) and (iii) the ability to interactively work with the data online through plotting tools developed by the Virtual Observatory (VO) community, such as Aladin and Specview. This service is VO compliant and can therefore also been queried by external search tools of the VO community. The diversity of available data and the capability to sort them out by relevant physical criteria shall in particular facilitate statistical studies, on long-term scales and/or multi-instrumental multispectral combined analysis [1,2]. We will present the updated capabilities of APIS with several examples. Several tutorials are available online.

Measuring and interpreting X-ray fluorescence from planetary surfaces.

Science.gov (United States)

Owens, Alan; Beckhoff, Burkhard; Fraser, George; Kolbe, Michael; Krumrey, Michael; Mantero, Alfonso; Mantler, Michael; Peacock, Anthony; Pia, Maria-Grazia; Pullan, Derek; Schneider, Uwe G; Ulm, Gerhard

2008-11-15

As part of a comprehensive study of X-ray emission from planetary surfaces and in particular the planet Mercury, we have measured fluorescent radiation from a number of planetary analog rock samples using monochromatized synchrotron radiation provided by the BESSY II electron storage ring. The experiments were carried out using a purpose built X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer chamber developed by the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany's national metrology institute. The XRF instrumentation is absolutely calibrated and allows for reference-free quantitation of rock sample composition, taking into account secondary photon- and electron-induced enhancement effects. The fluorescence data, in turn, have been used to validate a planetary fluorescence simulation tool based on the GEANT4 transport code. This simulation can be used as a mission analysis tool to predict the time-dependent orbital XRF spectral distributions from planetary surfaces throughout the mapping phase.

Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Richardson, Katherine; Rockström, Johan; Steffen, Will

2009-01-01

boundaries are rough, first estimates only, surrounded by large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Filling these gaps will require major advancements in Earth System and resilience science. The proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance...... and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development. Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the "planetary playing field" for humanity if we want to be sure...

UNSTABLE PLANETARY SYSTEMS EMERGING OUT OF GAS DISKS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsumura, Soko; Thommes, Edward W.; Chatterjee, Sourav; Rasio, Frederic A.

2010-01-01

The discovery of over 400 extrasolar planets allows us to statistically test our understanding of the formation and dynamics of planetary systems via numerical simulations. Traditional N-body simulations of multiple-planet systems without gas disks have successfully reproduced the eccentricity (e) distribution of the observed systems by assuming that the planetary systems are relatively closely packed when the gas disk dissipates, so that they become dynamically unstable within the stellar lifetime. However, such studies cannot explain the small semimajor axes a of extrasolar planetary systems, if planets are formed, as the standard planet formation theory suggests, beyond the ice line. In this paper, we numerically study the evolution of three-planet systems in dissipating gas disks, and constrain the initial conditions that reproduce the observed a and e distributions simultaneously. We adopt initial conditions that are motivated by the standard planet formation theory, and self-consistently simulate the disk evolution and planet migration, by using a hybrid N-body and one-dimensional gas disk code. We also take into account eccentricity damping, and investigate the effect of saturation of corotation resonances on the evolution of planetary systems. We find that the a distribution is largely determined in a gas disk, while the e distribution is determined after the disk dissipation. We also find that there may be an optimum disk mass which leads to the observed a-e distribution. Our simulations generate a larger fraction of planetary systems trapped in mean-motion resonances (MMRs) than the observations, indicating that the disk's perturbation to the planetary orbits may be important to explain the observed rate of MMRs. We also find a much lower occurrence of planets on retrograde orbits than the current observations of close-in planets suggest.

Miniaturisation of imaging spectrometer for planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Drossart, Pierre; Sémery, Alain; Réess, Jean-Michel; Combes, Michel

2017-11-01

Future planetary exploration on telluric or giant planets will need a new kind of instrumentation combining imaging and spectroscopy at high spectral resolution to achieve new scientific measurements, in particular for atmospheric studies in nadir configuration. We present here a study of a Fourier Transform heterodyne spectrometer, which can achieve these objectives, in the visible or infrared. The system is composed of a Michelson interferometer, whose mirrors have been replaced by gratings, a configuration studied in the early days of Fourier Transform spectroscopy, but only recently reused for space instrumentation, with the availability of large infrared mosaics. A complete study of an instrument is underway, with optical and electronic tests, as well as data processing analysis. This instrument will be proposed for future planetary missions, including ESA/Bepi Colombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter or Earth orbiting platforms.

A diagnostic signal selection scheme for planetary gearbox vibration monitoring under non-stationary operational conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Feng, Ke; Wang, KeSheng; Zhang, Mian; Ni, Qing; Zuo, Ming J

2017-01-01

The planetary gearbox, due to its unique mechanical structures, is an important rotating machine for transmission systems. Its engineering applications are often in non-stationary operational conditions, such as helicopters, wind energy systems, etc. The unique physical structures and working conditions make the vibrations measured from planetary gearboxes exhibit a complex time-varying modulation and therefore yield complicated spectral structures. As a result, traditional signal processing methods, such as Fourier analysis, and the selection of characteristic fault frequencies for diagnosis face serious challenges. To overcome this drawback, this paper proposes a signal selection scheme for fault-emphasized diagnostics based upon two order tracking techniques. The basic procedures for the proposed scheme are as follows. (1) Computed order tracking is applied to reveal the order contents and identify the order(s) of interest. (2) Vold–Kalman filter order tracking is used to extract the order(s) of interest—these filtered order(s) constitute the so-called selected vibrations. (3) Time domain statistic indicators are applied to the selected vibrations for faulty information-emphasized diagnostics. The proposed scheme is explained and demonstrated in a signal simulation model and experimental studies and the method proves to be effective for planetary gearbox fault diagnosis. (paper)

The chemical composition of three planetary nebulae in the Magellanic clouds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dufour, R.J.; Killen, R.M.

1977-01-01

Emission-line intensities in the planetary nebulae Henize 67 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) and Henize 97 and 153 in the LMC along with the small SMC H II regions Henize 9, 61, and 81 were measured from photographic image-tube spectra taken with the 1.5 m telescope at Cerro Tololo. The relative abundances of H, He, N, O, Ne, S, and Ar in the nebulae were estimated and compared with the compositions of galactic planetary nebulae and previously studied H II regions in the Clouds. The results show that (1) the N/O ratios in the planetary nebulae are substantially higher than found in the H II regions of each Cloud; (2) He/H approx. = 0.18 in the SMC planetary nebula, but seems normal (approx.0.10) in the two LMC planetaries; and (3) the compositions of the three small SMC H II regions are similar to that of larger SMC H II regions studied previously. It is concluded that the N/H values in the shells of planetary nebulae may not depend on the metal content of the progenitor star as much as recent theoretical models suggest and that the N content of the gas in the Magellanic Clouds arises primarily from sources other than planetary nebulae

A wideband optical monitor for a planetary-rotation coating-system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Campanelli, M.B.; Smith, D.J.

1998-01-01

A substrate-specific, through-planet, wideband optical coating monitor is being developed to increase production yield and the understanding of physical vapor deposition (PVD) coatings fabricated in the Optical Manufacturing Laboratory at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. In-situ wideband optical monitoring of planetary rotation systems allows direct monitoring of large, expensive substrates with complex layering schemes. The optical monitor discussed here is under development for coating several large (e.g., 80.7 x 41.7 x 9.0 cm) polarizers for the National Ignition Facility. Wideband optical monitoring of the production substrates is used in concert with an array of crystal monitors for process control, film parameter evaluation, and error detection with associated design reoptimization. The geometry of a planetary rotation system, which produces good uniformity across large substrates, makes optical monitoring more difficult. Triggering and timing techniques for data acquisition become key to the process because the optical coating is available only intermittently for monitoring. Failure to properly consider the effects of the system dynamics during data retrieval and processing may result in significant decreases in the spectral data's reliability. Improved data accuracy allows better determination of film thicknesses, indices, and inhomogeneities and enables in-situ error detection for design reoptimization

LBT observations of the HR8799 planetary system

Science.gov (United States)

Mesa, D.; Arcidiacono, C.; Claudi, R. U.; Desidera, S.; Esposito, S.; Gratton, R.; Masciadri, E.

2013-09-01

We present here observations of the HR8799 planetary system performed in H and Ks band exploiting the AO system at the Large Binocular Telescope and the PISCES camera. Thanks to the excellent performence of the instrument we were able to detect for the first time the inner known planet of the system (HR8799) in the H band. Precise photometric and astrometric measures have been taken for all the four planets. Further, exploiting ours and previous astrometric results, we were able to put some limits on the planetary orbits of the four planets. The analysis of the dinamical stability of the system seems to show lower planetary masses than the ones adopted until now.

Advances in Planetary Protection at the Deep Space Gateway

Science.gov (United States)

Spry, J. A.; Siegel, B.; Race, M.; Rummel, J. D.; Pugel, D. E.; Groen, F. J.; Kminek, G.; Conley, C. A.; Carosso, N. J.

2018-02-01

Planetary protection knowledge gaps that can be addressed by science performed at the Deep Space Gateway in the areas of human health and performance, space biology, and planetary sciences that enable future exploration in deep space, at Mars, and other targets.

The Planetary Collegium: Master Plan for a Distributed Mixed Reality Campus

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Anders

2012-10-01

Full Text Available This paper describes the design for a Mixed Reality campusfor the Planetary Collegium. The Collegium is an international research network centered at Plymouth, U.K. Its plans call for seven sub-centers, or nodes, to be builtin different parts of the world. These nodes would be linked by shared virtual spaces and digital networks. The paper describes how the Collegium’s seeming contradictions (distributed/unified, simulated/physical, local/remote can be reconciled. The resulting project is a mixed reality that transcends scales from global to local and, ultimately, to the constituent buildings and their digital spaces.

The Africa Initiative for Planetary and Space Sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Baratoux, D.; Chennaoui-Aoudjehane, H.; Gibson, R.; Lamali, A.; Reimold, W. U.; Selorm Sepah, M.; Chabou, M. C.; Habarulema, J. B.; Jessell, M.; Mogessie, A.; Benkhaldoun, Z.; Nkhonjera, E.; Mukosi, N. C.; Kaire, M.; Rochette, P.; Sickafoose, A.; Martínez-Frías, J.; Hofmann, A.; Folco, L.; Rossi, A. P.; Faye, G.; Kolenberg, K.; Tekle, K.; Belhai, D.; Elyajouri, M.; Koeberl, C.; Abdeem, M.

2017-12-01

Research groups in Planetary and Space Sciences (PSS) are now emerging in Africa, but remain few, scattered and underfunded. It is our conviction that the exclusion of 20% of the world's population from taking part in the fascinating discoveries about our solar system impoverishes global science. The benefits of a coordinated PSS program for Africa's youth have motivated a call for international support and investment [1] into an Africa Initiative for Planetary and Space Sciences. At the time of writing, the call has been endorsed by 230 scientists and 19 institutions or international organizations (follow the map of endorsements on https://africapss.org). More than 70 African Planetary scientists have already joined the initiative and about 150 researchers in non-African countries are ready to participate in research and in capacitity building of PSS programs in Africa. We will briefly review in this presentation the status of PSS in Africa [2] and illustrate some of the major achievements of African Planetary and Space scientists, including the search for meteorites or impact craters, the observations of exoplanets, and space weather investigations. We will then discuss a road map for its expansion, with an emphasis on the role that planetary and space scientists can play to support scientific and economic development in Africa. The initiative is conceived as a network of projects with Principal Investigators based in Africa. A Steering Committee is being constituted to coordinate these efforts and contribute to fund-raising and identification of potential private and public sponsors. The scientific strategy of each group within the network will be developed in cooperation with international experts, taking into account the local expertise, available equipment and facilities, and the priority needs to achieve well-identified scientific goals. Several founding events will be organized in 2018 in several African research centers and higher-education institutions to

Planetary protection issues related to human missions to Mars

Science.gov (United States)

Debus, A.; Arnould, J.

2008-09-01

In accordance with the United Nations Outer Space Treaties [United Nations, Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, UN doc A/RES/34/68, resolution 38/68 of December 1979], currently maintained and promulgated by the Committee on Space Research [COSPAR Planetary Protection Panel, Planetary Protection Policy accepted by the COSPAR Council and Bureau, 20 October 2002, amended 24 March 2005, http://www.cosparhq.org/scistr/PPPolicy.htm], missions exploring the Solar system must meet planetary protection requirements. Planetary protection aims to protect celestial bodies from terrestrial contamination and to protect the Earth environment from potential biological contamination carried by returned samples or space systems that have been in contact with an extraterrestrial environment. From an exobiology perspective, Mars is one of the major targets, and several missions are currently in operation, in transit, or scheduled for its exploration. Some of them include payloads dedicated to the detection of life or traces of life. The next step, over the coming years, will be to return samples from Mars to Earth, with a view to increasing our knowledge in preparation for the first manned mission that is likely to take place within the next few decades. Robotic missions to Mars shall meet planetary protection specifications, currently well documented, and planetary protection programs are implemented in a very reliable manner given that experience in the field spans some 40 years. With regards to sample return missions, a set of stringent requirements has been approved by COSPAR [COSPAR Planetary Protection Panel, Planetary Protection Policy accepted by the COSPAR Council and Bureau, 20 October 2002, amended 24 March 2005, http://www.cosparhq.org/scistr/PPPolicy.htm], and technical challenges must now be overcome in order to preserve the Earth’s biosphere from any eventual contamination risk. In addition to the human dimension of

75 FR 19661 - NASA Advisory Council; Science Committee; Planetary Protection Subcommittee; Meeting

Science.gov (United States)

2010-04-15

... includes the following topics: --Review European Space Agency-NASA Coordination on Planetary Protection... Committee; Planetary Protection Subcommittee; Meeting AGENCY: National Aeronautics and Space Administration... (NASA) announces a meeting of the Planetary Protection Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council (NAC...

ISO Spectroscopy of Proto-Planetary Nebulae

Science.gov (United States)

Hrivnak, Bruce J.

2000-01-01

The goal of this program was to determine the chemical properties of the dust shells around protoplanetary nebulae (PPNs) through a study of their short-wavelength (6-45 micron) infrared spectra. PPNs are evolved stars in transition from the asymptotic giant branch to the planetary nebula stages. Spectral features in the 10 to 20 gm region indicate the chemical nature (oxygen- or carbon-rich), and the strengths of the features relate to the physical properties of the shells. A few bright carbon-rich PPNs have been observed to show PAH features and an unidentified 21 micron emission feature. We used the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) to observe a sample of IRAS sources that have the expected properties of PPNs and for which we have accurate positions. Some of these have optical counterparts (proposal SWSPPN01) and some do not (SWSPPN02). We had previously observed these from the ground with near-infrared photometry and, for those with visible counterparts, visible photometry and spectroscopy, which we have combined with these new ISO data in the interpretation of the spectra. We have completed a study of the unidentified emission feature at 21 micron in eight sources. We find the shape of the feature to be the same in all of the sources, with no evidence of any substructure. The ratio of the emission peak to continuum ranges from 0.13 to 1.30. We have completed a study of seven PPNs and two other carbon-rich objects for which we had obtained ISO 2-45 micron observations. The unidentified emission features at 21 and 30 micron were detected in six sources, including four new detections of the 30 micron feature. This previously unresolved 30 micron feature was resolved and found to consist of a broad feature peaking at 27.2 micron (the "30 micron" feature) and a narrower feature peaking at 25.5 micron (the "26 micron" feature). This new 26 micron feature is detected in eight sources and is particularly strong in IRAS Z02229+6208 and 16594-4656. The unidentified

Effects of gravity and planetary waves on the lower ionosphere as obtained from radio wave absorption measurements

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Laštovička, Jan

2001-01-01

Roč. 26, 6, Part C (2001), s. 381-386 ISSN 1464-1917 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR IBS3012007; GA AV ČR IAA3042102; GA MŠk OC 271.10 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z3042911 Keywords : planetary wave * gravity wave * lower ionosphere Subject RIV: BL - Plasma and Gas Discharge Physics Impact factor: 0.399, year: 2001

The contribution of the ARIEL space mission to the study of planetary formation

Science.gov (United States)

Turrini, D.; Miguel, Y.; Zingales, T.; Piccialli, A.; Helled, R.; Vazan, A.; Oliva, F.; Sindoni, G.; Panić, O.; Leconte, J.; Min, M.; Pirani, S.; Selsis, F.; Coudé du Foresto, V.; Mura, A.; Wolkenberg, P.

2018-01-01

The study of extrasolar planets and of the Solar System provides complementary pieces of the mosaic represented by the process of planetary formation. Exoplanets are essential to fully grasp the huge diversity of outcomes that planetary formation and the subsequent evolution of the planetary systems can produce. The orbital and basic physical data we currently possess for the bulk of the exoplanetary population, however, do not provide enough information to break the intrinsic degeneracy of their histories, as different evolutionary tracks can result in the same final configurations. The lessons learned from the Solar System indicate us that the solution to this problem lies in the information contained in the composition of planets. The goal of the Atmospheric Remote-Sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey (ARIEL), one of the three candidates as ESA M4 space mission, is to observe a large and diversified population of transiting planets around a range of host star types to collect information on their atmospheric composition. ARIEL will focus on warm and hot planets to take advantage of their well-mixed atmospheres, which should show minimal condensation and sequestration of high-Z materials and thus reveal their bulk composition across all main cosmochemical elements. In this work we will review the most outstanding open questions concerning the way planets form and the mechanisms that contribute to create habitable environments that the compositional information gathered by ARIEL will allow to tackle.

Dust in planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mathis, J.S.

1978-01-01

The author's review concentrates on theoretical aspects of dust in planetary nebulae (PN). He considers the questions: how much dust is there is PN; what is its composition; what effects does it have on the ionization structure, on the dynamics of the nebula. (Auth.)

Planetary ring systems properties, structures, and evolution

CERN Document Server

Murray, Carl D

2018-01-01

Planetary rings are among the most intriguing structures of our solar system and have fascinated generations of astronomers. Collating emerging knowledge in the field, this volume reviews our current understanding of ring systems with reference to the rings of Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and more. Written by leading experts, the history of ring research and the basics of ring–particle orbits is followed by a review of the known planetary ring systems. All aspects of ring system science are described in detail, including specific dynamical processes, types of structures, thermal properties and their origins, and investigations using computer simulations and laboratory experiments. The concluding chapters discuss the prospects of future missions to planetary rings, the ways in which ring science informs and is informed by the study of other astrophysical disks, and a perspective on the field's future. Researchers of all levels will benefit from this thorough and engaging presentation.

Planetary Space Weather Service: Part of the the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Grande, Manuel; Andre, Nicolas

2016-07-01

Over the next four years the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure will set up an entirely new European Planetary Space Weather service (PSWS). Europlanet RI is a part of of Horizon 2020 (EPN2020-RI, http://www.europlanet-2020-ri.eu). The Virtual Access Service, WP5 VA1 "Planetary Space Weather Services" will extend the concepts of space weather and space situational awareness to other planets in our Solar System and in particular to spacecraft that voyage through it. VA1 will make five entirely new 'toolkits' accessible to the research community and to industrial partners planning for space missions: a general planetary space weather toolkit, as well as three toolkits dedicated to the following key planetary environments: Mars (in support ExoMars), comets (building on the expected success of the ESA Rosetta mission), and outer planets (in preparation for the ESA JUICE mission to be launched in 2022). This will give the European planetary science community new methods, interfaces, functionalities and/or plugins dedicated to planetary space weather in the tools and models available within the partner institutes. It will also create a novel event-diary toolkit aiming at predicting and detecting planetary events like meteor showers and impacts. A variety of tools (in the form of web applications, standalone software, or numerical models in various degrees of implementation) are available for tracing propagation of planetary and/or solar events through the Solar System and modelling the response of the planetary environment (surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres) to those events. But these tools were not originally designed for planetary event prediction and space weather applications. So WP10 JRA4 "Planetary Space Weather Services" (PSWS) will provide the additional research and tailoring required to apply them for these purposes. The overall objectives of this Joint Research Aactivities will be to review, test, improve and adapt methods and tools

Interdisciplinary Research Produces Results in the Understanding of Planetary Dunes

Science.gov (United States)

Titus, Timothy N.; Hayward, Rosalyn Kay; Bourke, Mary C.

2010-08-01

Second International Planetary Dunes Workshop: Planetary Analogs—Integrating Models, Remote Sensing, and Field Data; Alamosa, Colorado, 18-21 May 2010; Dunes and other eolian bed forms are prominent on several planetary bodies in our solar system. Despite 4 decades of study, many questions remain regarding the composition, age, and origins of these features, as well as the climatic conditions under which they formed. Recently acquired data from orbiters and rovers, together with terrestrial analogs and numerical models, are providing new insights into Martian sand dunes, as well as eolian bed forms on other terrestrial planetary bodies (e.g., Titan). As a means of bringing together terrestrial and planetary researchers from diverse backgrounds with the goal of fostering collaborative interdisciplinary research, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, the Desert Research Institute, and the U.S. National Park Service held a workshop in Colorado. The small group setting facilitated intensive discussion of problems and issues associated with eolian processes on Earth, Mars, and Titan.

Automation and Robotics for space operation and planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Montemerlo, Melvin D.

1990-01-01

This paper presents a perspective of Automation and Robotics (A&R) research and developments at NASA in terms of its history, its current status, and its future. It covers artificial intelligence, telerobotics and planetary rovers, and it encompasses ground operations, operations in earth orbit, and planetary exploration.

Vibration condition monitoring of planetary gearbox under varying external load

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bartelmus, W.; Zimroz, R. [Wroclaw University of Technology, Wroclaw (Poland)

2009-01-15

The paper shows that for condition monitoring of planetary gearboxes it is important to identify the external varying load condition. In the paper, systematic consideration has been taken of the influence of many factors on the vibration signals generated by a system in which a planetary gearbox is included. These considerations give the basis for vibration signal interpretation, development of the means of condition monitoring, and for the scenario of the degradation of the planetary gearbox. Real measured vibration signals obtained in the industrial environment are processed. The signals are recorded during normal operation of the diagnosed objects, namely planetary gearboxes, which are a part of the driving system used in a bucket wheel excavator, used in lignite mines. It has been found that the most important factor of the proper planetary gearbox condition is connected with perturbation of arm rotation, where an arm rotation gives rise to a specific vibration signal whose properties are depicted by a short-time Fourier transform (STFT) and Wigner-Ville distribution presented as a time-frequency map. The paper gives evidence that there are two dominant low-frequency causes that influence vibration signal modulation, i.e. the varying load, which comes from the nature of the bucket wheel digging process, and the arm/carrier rotation. These two causes determine the condition of the planetary gearboxes considered.

The effect of carbon monoxide on planetary haze formation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hörst, S. M.; Tolbert, M. A, E-mail: sarah.horst@colorado.edu [Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

2014-01-20

Organic haze plays a key role in many planetary processes ranging from influencing the radiation budget of an atmosphere to serving as a source of prebiotic molecules on the surface. Numerous experiments have investigated the aerosols produced by exposing mixtures of N{sub 2}/CH{sub 4} to a variety of energy sources. However, many N{sub 2}/CH{sub 4} atmospheres in both our solar system and extrasolar planetary systems also contain carbon monoxide (CO). We have conducted a series of atmosphere simulation experiments to investigate the effect of CO on the formation and particle size of planetary haze analogues for a range of CO mixing ratios using two different energy sources, spark discharge and UV. We find that CO strongly affects both number density and particle size of the aerosols produced in our experiments and indicates that CO may play an important, previously unexplored, role in aerosol chemistry in planetary atmospheres.

Trilogy, a Planetary Geodesy Mission Concept for Measuring the Expansion of the Solar System.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, David E; Zuber, Maria T; Mazarico, Erwan; Genova, Antonio; Neumann, Gregory A; Sun, Xiaoli; Torrence, Mark H; Mao, Dan-Dan

2018-04-01

The scale of the solar system is slowly changing, likely increasing as a result of solar mass loss, with additional change possible if there is a secular variation of the gravitational constant, G . The measurement of the change of scale could provide insight into the past and the future of the solar system, and in addition a better understanding of planetary motion and fundamental physics. Estimates for the expansion of the scale of the solar system are of order 1.5 cm year -1 AU -1 , which over several years is an observable quantity with present-day laser ranging systems. This estimate suggests that laser measurements between planets could provide an accurate estimate of the solar system expansion rate. We examine distance measurements between three bodies in the inner solar system -- Earth's Moon, Mars and Venus -- and outline a mission concept for making the measurements. The concept involves placing spacecraft that carry laser ranging transponders in orbit around each body and measuring the distances between the three spacecraft over a period of several years. The analysis of these range measurements would allow the co-estimation of the spacecraft orbit, planetary ephemerides, other geophysical parameters related to the constitution and dynamics of the central bodies, and key geodetic parameters related to the solar system expansion, the Sun, and theoretical physics.

Trilogy, a planetary geodesy mission concept for measuring the expansion of the solar system

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, David E.; Zuber, Maria T.; Mazarico, Erwan; Genova, Antonio; Neumann, Gregory A.; Sun, Xiaoli; Torrence, Mark H.; Mao, Dan-dan

2018-04-01

The scale of the solar system is slowly changing, likely increasing as a result of solar mass loss, with additional change possible if there is a secular variation of the gravitational constant, G. The measurement of the change of scale could provide insight into the past and the future of the solar system, and in addition a better understanding of planetary motion and fundamental physics. Estimates for the expansion of the scale of the solar system are of order 1.5 cm year-1 AU-1, which over several years is an observable quantity with present-day laser ranging systems. This estimate suggests that laser measurements between planets could provide an accurate estimate of the solar system expansion rate. We examine distance measurements between three bodies in the inner solar system - Earth's Moon, Mars and Venus - and outline a mission concept for making the measurements. The concept involves placing spacecraft that carry laser ranging transponders in orbit around each body and measuring the distances between the three spacecraft over a period of several years. The analysis of these range measurements would allow the co-estimation of the spacecraft orbit, planetary ephemerides, other geophysical parameters related to the constitution and dynamics of the central bodies, and key geodetic parameters related to the solar system expansion, the Sun, and theoretical physics.

Calcium signals in planetary embryos

Science.gov (United States)

Morbidelli, Alessandro

2018-03-01

The calcium-isotope composition of planetary bodies in the inner Solar System correlates with the masses of such objects. This finding could have implications for our understanding of how the Solar System formed.

More evidence for a planetary wave link with midlatitude E region coherent backscatter and sporadic E layers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

K. Schlegel

Full Text Available Measurements of midlatitude E region coherent backscatter obtained during four summers with SESCAT, a 50 MHz Doppler system operating in Crete, Greece, and concurrent ionosonde recordings from the same ionospheric volume obtained with a CADI for one of these summers, are used to analyse the long-term variability in echo and Es occurrence. Echo and Es layer occurrences, computed in percent of time over a 12-h nighttime interval, take the form of time sequences. Linear power spectrum analysis shows that there are dominant spectral peaks in the range of 2–9 days, the most commonly observed periods appearing in two preferential bands, of 2–3 days and 4–7 days. No connection with geomagnetic activity was found. The characteristics of these periodicities compare well with similar properties of planetary waves, which suggests the possibility that planetary waves are responsible for the observed long-term periodicities. These findings indicate also a likely close relation between planetary wave (PW activity and the well known but not well understood seasonal Es dependence. To test the PW postulation, we used simultaneous neutral wind data from the mesopause region around 95 km, measured from Collm, Germany. Direct comparison of the long-term periodicities in echo and Es layer occurrence with those in the neutral wind show some reasonable agreement. This new evidence, although not fully conclusive, is the first direct indication in favour of a planetary wave role on the unstable midlatitude E region ionosphere. Our results suggest that planetary waves observation is a viable option and a new element into the physics of midlatitude Es layers that needs to be considered and investigated.Key words: Ionosphere (ionosphere irregularities; mid-latitude ionosphere – Meteorology and atmospheric dynamics (waves and tides

Equation of state experiments and theory relevant to planetary modelling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ross, M.; Graboske, H.C. Jr.; Nellis, W.J.

1981-01-01

In recent years there have been a number of static and shockwave experiments on the properties of planetary materials. The highest pressure measurements, and the ones most relevant to planetary modelling, have been obtained by shock compression. Of particular interest to the Jovian group are results for H 2 , H 2 O, CH 4 and NH 3 . Although the properties of metallic hydrogen have not been measured, they have been the subject of extensive calculations. In addition recent shock wave experiments on iron report to have detected melting under Earth core conditions. From this data theoretical models have been developed for computing the equations of state of materials used in planetary studies. A compelling feature that has followed from the use of improved material properties is a simplification in the planetary models. (author)

Advanced Physical Models and Numerical Algorithms to Enable High-Fidelity Aerothermodynamic Simulations of Planetary Entry Vehicles on Emerging Distributed Heterogeneous Computing Architectures

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The design and qualification of entry systems for planetary exploration largely rely on computational simulations. However, state-of-the-art modeling capabilities...

Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy, Prospects

CERN Document Server

Harvey, Brian

2007-01-01

Russia’s accomplishments in planetary space exploration were not achieved easily. Formerly, the USSR experienced frustration in trying to tame unreliable Molniya and Proton upper stages and in tracking spacecraft over long distances. This book will assess the scientific haul of data from the Venus and Mars missions and look at the engineering approaches. The USSR developed several generations of planetary probes: from MV and Zond to the Phobos type. The engineering techniques used and the science packages are examined, as well as the nature of the difficulties encountered which ruined several missions. The programme’s scientific and engineering legacy is also addressed, as well as its role within the Soviet space programme as a whole. Brian Harvey concludes by looking forward to future Russian planetary exploration (e.g Phobos Grunt sample return mission). Several plans have been considered and may, with a restoration of funding, come to fruition. Soviet studies of deep space and Mars missions (e.g. TMK, ...

3He Abundances in Planetary Nebulae

Science.gov (United States)

Guzman-Ramirez, Lizette

2017-10-01

Determination of the 3He isotope is important to many fields of astrophysics, including stellar evolution, chemical evolution, and cosmology. The isotope is produced in stars which evolve through the planetary nebula phase. Planetary nebulae are the final evolutionary phase of low- and intermediate-mass stars, where the extensive mass lost by the star on the asymptotic giant branch is ionised by the emerging white dwarf. This ejecta quickly disperses and merges with the surrounding ISM. 3He abundances in planetary nebulae have been derived from the hyperfine transition of the ionised 3He, 3He+, at the radio rest frequency 8.665 GHz. 3He abundances in PNe can help test models of the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. Many hours have been put into trying to detect this line, using telescopes like the Effelsberg 100m dish of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) 140-foot telescope, the NRAO Very Large Array, the Arecibo antenna, the Green Bank Telescope, and only just recently, the Deep Space Station 63 antenna from the Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex.

Detectability of planetary rings around super-earths by direct infrared imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Morel, Carine

2013-01-01

Super-Earths, of which more than 80 have already been discovered, draw a lot of attention. With masses between those of the Earth and Neptune, they are ideal targets for searching for bio-signatures. All the gas giants of the solar system have a ring system, and even the Earth is suspected to have had rings in the past; their presence around super-Earths is thus expected and could give information on the formation process of these planets. The characterization of Super-Earths and their environment has thus become an important goal of modern astronomy. They are still difficult to study because of their small size, but the potential presence of planetary rings can make them easier to observe by the transit method and by direct imaging. This PhD evaluates the possibilities of detecting and characterizing rings around super-Earths by direct infrared imaging with the ELT-METIS instrument. To do this, a model to simulate the thermal emission of a super-Earth and its rings is developed. It is then used to study the influence of physical parameters and orientation of the rings and of planetary orbit on their detectability. The results show that ELT-METIS will be able to detect rings similar to the B and C rings of Saturn, extended within the Roche limit. The super-Earths surrounded by rings will be observable in middle orbit, between about 0.4 and 1 AU, around hot stars within 20 pc of the Sun. It is also shown that the photometric monitoring along the orbit of a super-Earth surrounded by rings should help constrain some of their physical characteristics. (author) [fr

Secular chaos and its application to Mercury, hot Jupiters, and the organization of planetary systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Lithwick, Yoram; Wu, Yanqin

2014-09-02

In the inner solar system, the planets' orbits evolve chaotically, driven primarily by secular chaos. Mercury has a particularly chaotic orbit and is in danger of being lost within a few billion years. Just as secular chaos is reorganizing the solar system today, so it has likely helped organize it in the past. We suggest that extrasolar planetary systems are also organized to a large extent by secular chaos. A hot Jupiter could be the end state of a secularly chaotic planetary system reminiscent of the solar system. However, in the case of the hot Jupiter, the innermost planet was Jupiter (rather than Mercury) sized, and its chaotic evolution was terminated when it was tidally captured by its star. In this contribution, we review our recent work elucidating the physics of secular chaos and applying it to Mercury and to hot Jupiters. We also present results comparing the inclinations of hot Jupiters thus produced with observations.

Secular chaos and its application to Mercury, hot Jupiters, and the organization of planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Lithwick, Yoram; Wu, Yanqin

2014-01-01

In the inner solar system, the planets’ orbits evolve chaotically, driven primarily by secular chaos. Mercury has a particularly chaotic orbit and is in danger of being lost within a few billion years. Just as secular chaos is reorganizing the solar system today, so it has likely helped organize it in the past. We suggest that extrasolar planetary systems are also organized to a large extent by secular chaos. A hot Jupiter could be the end state of a secularly chaotic planetary system reminiscent of the solar system. However, in the case of the hot Jupiter, the innermost planet was Jupiter (rather than Mercury) sized, and its chaotic evolution was terminated when it was tidally captured by its star. In this contribution, we review our recent work elucidating the physics of secular chaos and applying it to Mercury and to hot Jupiters. We also present results comparing the inclinations of hot Jupiters thus produced with observations. PMID:24367108

Natural Frequencies and Vibrating Modes for a Magnetic Planetary Gear Drive

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lizhong Xu

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a dynamic model for a magnetic planetary gear drive is proposed. Based on the model, the dynamic equations for the magnetic planetary gear drive are given. From the magnetic meshing forces and torques between the elements for the drive system, the tangent and radial magnetic meshing stiffness is obtained. Using these equations, the natural frequencies and the modes of the magnetic planetary gear drive are investigated. The sensitivity of the natural frequencies to the system parameters is discussed. Results show that the pole pair number and the air gap have obvious effects on the natural frequencies. For the planetary gear number larger than two, the vibrations of the drive system include the torsion mode of the center elements, the translation mode of the center elements, and the planet modes. For the planetary gear number equal to two, the planet mode does not occur, the crown mode and the sun gear mode occur.

The Lunar and Planetary Institute Summer Intern Program in Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, G. Y.

2017-12-01

Since 1977, the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) Summer Intern Program brings undergraduate students from across the world to Houston for 10 weeks of their summer where they work one-on-one with a scientist at either LPI or Johnson Space Center on a cutting-edge research project in the planetary sciences. The program is geared for students finishing their sophomore and junior years, although graduating seniors may also apply. It is open to international undergraduates as well as students from the United States. Applicants must have at least 50 semester hours of credit (or equivalent sophomore status) and an interest in pursuing a career in the sciences. The application process is somewhat rigorous, requiring three letters of recommendation, official college transcripts, and a letter describing their background, interests, and career goals. The deadline for applications is in early January of that year of the internship. More information about the program and how to apply can be found on the LPI website: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/lpiintern/. Each advisor reads through the applications, looking for academically excellent students and those with scientific interest and backgrounds compatible with the advisor's specific project. Interns are selected fairly from the applicant pool - there are no pre-arranged agreements or selections based on who knows whom. The projects are different every year as new advisors come into the program, and existing ones change their research interest and directions. The LPI Summer Intern Program gives students the opportunity to participate in peer-reviewed research, learn from top-notch planetary scientists, and preview various careers in science. For many interns, this program was a defining moment in their careers - when they decided whether or not to follow an academic path, which direction they would take, and how. While past interns can be found all over the world and in a wide variety of occupations, all share the common bond of

Novel Space Exploration Technique for Analysing Planetary Atmospheres

OpenAIRE

Dekoulis, George

2010-01-01

The chapter presents a new reconfigurable wide-beam radio interferometer system for analysing planetary atmospheres. The system operates at frequencies, where the ionisation of the planetary plasma regions induces strong attenuation. For Earth, the attenuation is undistinguishable from the CMB at frequencies over 50 MHz. The system introduces a set of advanced specifications to this field of science, previously unseen in similar suborbital experiments. The reprogrammable dynamic range of the ...

Soft x-ray Planetary Imager

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The project is to prototype a soft X-ray Imager for planetary applications that has the sensitivity to observe solar system sources of soft  X-ray emission. A strong...

Polarimetry of stars and planetary systems

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Kolokolova, Ludmilla; Hough, James; Levasseur-Regourd, Anny-Chantal

2015-01-01

... fields of polarimetric exploration, including proto-planetary and debris discs, icy satellites, transneptunian objects, exoplanets and the search for extraterrestrial life -- unique results produced...

A radio search for planetary nebulae near the galactic center

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Isaacman, R.B.

1980-01-01

Because of galactic center is a hostile environment, and because planetaries are weak radio emitters, it is not clear a priori that one expects to detect any planetary nebulae at all in the nuclear region of the Galaxy. Therefore the expected lifetime and flux density distribution of galactic center nebulae is considered. The principal observational results from the Westerbork data, and the results of some pilot observations with the Very Large Array, which were intended to distinguish planetaries from other radio sources on an individual basis are given. (Auth.)

Residual signal feature extraction for gearbox planetary stage fault detection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skrimpas, Georgios Alexandros; Ursin, Thomas; Sweeney, Christian Walsted

2017-01-01

Faults in planetary gears and related bearings, e.g. planet bearings and planet carrier bearings, pose inherent difficulties on their accurate and consistent detection associated mainly to the low energy in slow rotating stages and the operating complexity of planetary gearboxes. In this work......, identification of the expected spectral signature for proper residual signal calculation and filtering of any frequency component not related to the planetary stage. Two field cases of planet carrier bearing defect and planet wheel spalling are presented and discussed, showing the efficiency of the followed...

The Energetic Demands and Planetary Footprint of Alternative Human Diets

Science.gov (United States)

Eshel, G.; Martin, P. A.

2005-12-01

Agriculture is one of the major vehicles of human alteration of the planetary environment. Yet different diets vary vastly in terms of both their energetic demands and overall planetary footprint. We present a quantitative argument that demonstrates that plant-based diets exert vastly smaller planetary environmental cost than animal-based ones. We demonstrate that under a reasonable and readily defensible set of assumptions, a plant-based diet differs from the average American diet by as much energy as the difference between driving a compact and efficient sedan and a Sport Utility Vehicle.

Formation of moon induced gaps in dense planetary rings

Science.gov (United States)

Grätz, F.; Seiß, M.; Spahn, F.

2017-09-01

Recent works have shown that bodies embedded in planetary rings create S-shaped density modula- tions called propellers if their mass deceeds a certain threshold or cause a gap around the entire circumference of the disc if the embedded bodies mass exceeds it. Two counteracting physical processes govern the dynamics and determine what structure is created: The gravitational disturber excerts a torque on nearby disc particles, sweeping them away from itself on both sides thus depleting the discs density and forming a gap. Diffusive spreading of the disc material due to collisions counteracts the gravitational scattering and has the tendency to fill the gap. We develop a nonlinear diffusion model that accounts for those two counteracting processes and describes the azimutally averaged surface density profile an embedded moon creates in planetary rings. The gaps width depends on the moons mass, its radial position and the rings viscosity allowing us to estimate the rings viscosity in the vicinity of the Encke and Keeler gap in Saturns A-Ring and compare it to previous measurements. We show that for the Keeler gap the time derivative of the semi-major axis as derived by Goldreich and Tremaine 1980 is underestimated yielding an underestimated viscosity for the ring. We therefore derive a corrected expression for said time derivative by fitting the solutions of Hill's equations for an ensemble of test particles. Furthermore we estimate the masses for potentionally unseen moonlets in the C-Ring and Cassini division.

The Strength Analysis of Differential Planetary Gears of Gearbox for Concrete Mixer Truck

Science.gov (United States)

Bae, M. H.; Bae, T. Y.; Kim, D. J.

2018-03-01

The power train of mixer gearbox for concrete mixer truck includes differential planetary gears to get large reduction ratio for operating mixer a drum and simple structure. The planetary gears are very important part of a mixer gearbox where strength problems namely gear bending stress, gear compressive stress and scoring failure are the main concern. In the present study, calculating specifications of the differential planetary gears and analyzing the gear bending and compressive stresses as well as scoring factor of the differential planetary gears gearbox for an optimal design of the mixer gearbox in respect to cost and reliability are investigated. The analyses of actual gear bending and compressive stresses of the differential planetary gears using Lewes & Hertz equation and verifications of the calculated specifications of the differential planetary gears evaluate the results with the data of allowable bending and compressive stress from the Stress-No. of cycles curves of gears. In addition, we also analyze actual gear scoring factor as well as evaluate the possibility of scoring failure of the differential planetary gear.

The Physical, Chemical and Physiological Limits of Life

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dirk Schulze-Makuch

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Life on Earth displays an incredible diversity in form and function, which allows it to survive not only physical extremes, but also periods of time when it is exposed to non-habitable conditions. Extreme physiological adaptations to bridge non-habitable conditions include various dormant states, such as spores or tuns. Here, we advance the hypothesis that if the environmental conditions are different on some other planetary body, a deviating biochemistry would evolve with types of adaptations that would manifest themselves with different physical and chemical limits of life. In this paper, we discuss two specific examples: putative life on a Mars-type planet with a hydrogen peroxide-water solvent and putative life on a Titan-type planetary body with liquid hydrocarbons as a solvent. Both examples would have the result of extending the habitable envelope of life in the universe.

Vibration behavior optimization of planetary gear sets

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farshad Shakeri Aski

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a global optimization method focused on planetary gear vibration reduction by means of tip relief profile modifications. A nonlinear dynamic model is used to study the vibration behavior. In order to investigate the optimal radius and amplitude, Brute Force method optimization is used. One approach in optimization is straightforward and requires considerable computation power: brute force methods try to calculate all possible solutions and decide afterwards which one is the best. Results show the influence of optimal profile on planetary gear vibrations.

Planetary nebulae and the interstellar magnetic field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heiligman, G.M.

1980-01-01

Previous workers have found a statistical correlation between the projected directions of the interstellar magnetic field and the major axes of planetary nebulae. This result has been examined theoretically using a numerical hydromagnetic model of a cold plasma nebula expanding into a uniform vacuum magnetic field, with nebular gas accreting on the surface. It is found that magnetic pressure alone is probably not sufficient to shape most planetary nebulae to the observed degree. Phenomena are discussed which could amplify simple magnetic pressure, alter nebular morphology and account for the observed correlation. (author)

Absolute Navigation Information Estimation for Micro Planetary Rovers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Ilyas

2016-03-01

Full Text Available This paper provides algorithms to estimate absolute navigation information, e.g., absolute attitude and position, by using low power, weight and volume Microelectromechanical Systems-type (MEMS sensors that are suitable for micro planetary rovers. Planetary rovers appear to be easily navigable robots due to their extreme slow speed and rotation but, unfortunately, the sensor suites available for terrestrial robots are not always available for planetary rover navigation. This makes them difficult to navigate in a completely unexplored, harsh and complex environment. Whereas the relative attitude and position can be tracked in a similar way as for ground robots, absolute navigation information, unlike in terrestrial applications, is difficult to obtain for a remote celestial body, such as Mars or the Moon. In this paper, an algorithm called the EASI algorithm (Estimation of Attitude using Sun sensor and Inclinometer is presented to estimate the absolute attitude using a MEMS-type sun sensor and inclinometer, only. Moreover, the output of the EASI algorithm is fused with MEMS gyros to produce more accurate and reliable attitude estimates. An absolute position estimation algorithm has also been presented based on these on-board sensors. Experimental results demonstrate the viability of the proposed algorithms and the sensor suite for low-cost and low-weight micro planetary rovers.

Workshop on Advanced Technologies for Planetary Instruments, part 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Appleby, J.F.

1993-01-01

This meeting was conceived in response to new challenges facing NASA's robotic solar system exploration program. This volume contains papers presented at the Workshop on Advanced Technologies for Planetary Instruments on 28-30 Apr. 1993. This meeting was conceived in response to new challenges facing NASA's robotic solar system exploration program. Over the past several years, SDIO has sponsored a significant technology development program aimed, in part, at the production of instruments with these characteristics. This workshop provided an opportunity for specialists from the planetary science and DOD communities to establish contacts, to explore common technical ground in an open forum, and more specifically, to discuss the applicability of SDIO's technology base to planetary science instruments

Planetary geomorphology field studies: Iceland and Antarctica

Science.gov (United States)

Malin, M. C.

1984-01-01

Field studies of terrestrial landforms and the processes that shape them provide new directions to the study of planetary features. These studies, conducted in Iceland and in Antarctica, investigated physical and chemical weathering mechanisms and rates, eolitan processes, mudflow phenomena, drainage development, and catastrophic fluvial and volcanic phenomena. Continuing investigations in Iceland fall in three main catagories: (1) catastrophic floods of the Jokulsa a Fjollum, (2) lahars associated with explosive volcanic eruptions of Askja caldera, and (3) rates of eolian abrasion in cold, volcanic deserts. The ice-free valleys of Antarctica, in particular those in South Victoria Land, have much is common with the surface of Mars. In addition to providing independent support for the application of the Iceland findings to consideration of the martian erosional system, the Antarctic observations also provide analogies to other martian phenomena. For example, a family of sand dunes in Victoria Valley are stabilized by the incorporation of snow as beds.

Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity

Science.gov (United States)

Johan Rockström; Will Steffen; Kevin Noone; Asa Persson; F. Stuart Chapin; Eric Lambin; Timothy M. Lenton; Marten Scheffer; Carl Folke; Hans Joachim Schellnhuber; Björn Nykvist; Cynthia A. de Wit; Terry Hughes; Sander van der Leeuw; Henning Rodhe; Sverker Sörlin; Peter K. Snyder; Robert Costanza; Uno Svedin; Malin Falkenmark; Louise Karlberg; Robert W. Corell; Victoria J. Fabry; James Hansen; Brian Walker; Diana Liverman; Katherine Richardson; Paul Crutzen; Jonathan Foley

2009-01-01

Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new approach to global sustainability in which we define planetary boundaries within which we expect that humanity can operate safely. Transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious or even catastrophic due...

Laser Mass Spectrometry in Planetary Science

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wurz, P.; Whitby, J. A.; Managadze, G. G.

2009-01-01

Knowing the chemical, elemental, and isotopic composition of planetary objects allows the study of their origin and evolution within the context of our solar system. Exploration plans in planetary research of several space agencies consider landing spacecraft for future missions. Although there have been successful landers in the past, more landers are foreseen for Mars and its moons, Venus, the jovian moons, and asteroids. Furthermore, a mass spectrometer on a landed spacecraft can assist in the sample selection in a sample-return mission and provide mineralogical context, or identify possible toxic soils on Mars for manned Mars exploration. Given the resources available on landed spacecraft mass spectrometers, as well as any other instrument, have to be highly miniaturised.

Teaching Planetary Science as Part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

Science.gov (United States)

Margot, Jean-Luc; Greenberg, Adam H.

2017-10-01

In Spring 2016 and 2017, UCLA offered a course titled "EPSS C179/279 - Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Theory and Applications". The course is designed for advanced undergraduate students and graduate students in the science, technical, engineering, and mathematical fields. Each year, students designed an observing sequence for the Green Bank telescope, observed known planetary systems remotely, wrote a sophisticated and modular data processing pipeline, analyzed the data, and presented their results. In 2016, 15 students participated in the course (9U, 5G; 11M, 3F) and observed 14 planetary systems in the Kepler field. In 2017, 17 students participated (15U, 2G; 10M, 7F) and observed 10 planetary systems in the Kepler field, TRAPPIST-1, and LHS 1140. In order to select suitable targets, students learned about planetary systems, planetary habitability, and planetary dynamics. In addition to planetary science fundamentals, students learned radio astronomy fundamentals, collaborative software development, signal processing techniques, and statistics. Evaluations indicate that the course is challenging but that students are eager to learn because of the engrossing nature of SETI. Students particularly value the teamwork approach, the observing experience, and working with their own data. The next offering of the course will be in Spring 2018. Additional information about our SETI work is available at seti.ucla.edu.

Structure of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goad, L.E.

1975-01-01

Image-tube photographs of planetary nebulae taken through narrow-band interference filters are used to map the surface brightness of these nebulae in their most prominent emission lines. These observations are best understood in terms of a two-component model consisting of a tenuous diffuse nebular medium and a network of dense knots and filaments with neutral cores. The observations of the diffuse component indicate that the inner regions of these nebulae are hollow shells. This suggests that steady stellar winds are the dominant factor in determining the structure of the central regions of planetary nebulae. The observations of the filamentary components of NGC 40 and NGC 6720 show that the observed nebular features can result from the illumination of the inner edges of dense fragmentary neutral filaments by the central stars of these nebulae. From the analysis of the observations of the low-excitation lines in NGC 2392, it is concluded that the rate constant for the N + --H charge transfer reaction is less than 10 -12 cm 3 sec -1

The Planetary Nebula Spectrograph : The green light for galaxy kinematics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Douglas, NG; Arnaboldi, M; Freeman, KC; Kuijken, K; Merrifield, MR; Romanowsky, AJ; Taylor, K; Capaccioli, M; Axelrod, T; Gilmozzi, R; Hart, J; Bloxham, G; Jones, D

2002-01-01

Planetary nebulae (PNe) are now well established as probes of galaxy dynamics and as standard candles in distance determinations. Motivated by the need to improve the efficiency of planetary nebulae searches and the speed with which their radial velocities are determined, a dedicated instrument-the

China's roadmap for planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Yong; Yao, Zhonghua; Wan, Weixing

2018-05-01

China has approved or planned a string of several space exploration missions to be launched over the next decade. A new generation of planetary scientists in China is playing an important role in determining the scientific goals of future missions.

Planetary protection implementation on future Mars lander missions

Science.gov (United States)

Howell, Robert; Devincenzi, Donald L.

1993-01-01

A workshop was convened to discuss the subject of planetary protection implementation for Mars lander missions. It was sponsored and organized by the Exobiology Implementation Team of the U.S./Russian Joint Working Group on Space Biomedical and Life Support Systems. The objective of the workshop was to discuss planetary protection issues for the Russian Mars '94 mission, which is currently under development, as well as for additional future Mars lander missions including the planned Mars '96 and U.S. MESUR Pathfinder and Network missions. A series of invited presentations was made to ensure that workshop participants had access to information relevant to the planned discussions. The topics summarized in this report include exobiology science objectives for Mars exploration, current international policy on planetary protection, planetary protection requirements developed for earlier missions, mission plans and designs for future U.S. and Russian Mars landers, biological contamination of spacecraft components, and techniques for spacecraft bioload reduction. In addition, the recent recommendations of the U.S. Space Studies Board (SSB) on this subject were also summarized. Much of the discussion focused on the recommendations of the SSB. The SSB proposed relaxing the planetary protection requirements for those Mars lander missions that do not contain life detection experiments, but maintaining Viking-like requirements for those missions that do contain life detection experiments. The SSB recommendations were found to be acceptable as a guide for future missions, although many questions and concerns about interpretation were raised and are summarized. Significant among the concerns was the need for more quantitative guidelines to prevent misinterpretation by project offices and better access to and use of the Viking data base of bioassays to specify microbial burden targets. Among the questions raised were how will the SSB recommendations be integrated with existing

Planetary protection implementation on future Mars lander missions

Science.gov (United States)

Howell, Robert; Devincenzi, Donald L.

1993-06-01

A workshop was convened to discuss the subject of planetary protection implementation for Mars lander missions. It was sponsored and organized by the Exobiology Implementation Team of the U.S./Russian Joint Working Group on Space Biomedical and Life Support Systems. The objective of the workshop was to discuss planetary protection issues for the Russian Mars '94 mission, which is currently under development, as well as for additional future Mars lander missions including the planned Mars '96 and U.S. MESUR Pathfinder and Network missions. A series of invited presentations was made to ensure that workshop participants had access to information relevant to the planned discussions. The topics summarized in this report include exobiology science objectives for Mars exploration, current international policy on planetary protection, planetary protection requirements developed for earlier missions, mission plans and designs for future U.S. and Russian Mars landers, biological contamination of spacecraft components, and techniques for spacecraft bioload reduction. In addition, the recent recommendations of the U.S. Space Studies Board (SSB) on this subject were also summarized. Much of the discussion focused on the recommendations of the SSB. The SSB proposed relaxing the planetary protection requirements for those Mars lander missions that do not contain life detection experiments, but maintaining Viking-like requirements for those missions that do contain life detection experiments. The SSB recommendations were found to be acceptable as a guide for future missions, although many questions and concerns about interpretation were raised and are summarized. Significant among the concerns was the need for more quantitative guidelines to prevent misinterpretation by project offices and better access to and use of the Viking data base of bio-assays to specify microbial burden targets. Among the questions raised were how will the SSB recommendations be integrated with existing

Photogrammetric Processing of Planetary Linear Pushbroom Images Based on Approximate Orthophotos

Science.gov (United States)

Geng, X.; Xu, Q.; Xing, S.; Hou, Y. F.; Lan, C. Z.; Zhang, J. J.

2018-04-01

It is still a great challenging task to efficiently produce planetary mapping products from orbital remote sensing images. There are many disadvantages in photogrammetric processing of planetary stereo images, such as lacking ground control information and informative features. Among which, image matching is the most difficult job in planetary photogrammetry. This paper designs a photogrammetric processing framework for planetary remote sensing images based on approximate orthophotos. Both tie points extraction for bundle adjustment and dense image matching for generating digital terrain model (DTM) are performed on approximate orthophotos. Since most of planetary remote sensing images are acquired by linear scanner cameras, we mainly deal with linear pushbroom images. In order to improve the computational efficiency of orthophotos generation and coordinates transformation, a fast back-projection algorithm of linear pushbroom images is introduced. Moreover, an iteratively refined DTM and orthophotos scheme was adopted in the DTM generation process, which is helpful to reduce search space of image matching and improve matching accuracy of conjugate points. With the advantages of approximate orthophotos, the matching results of planetary remote sensing images can be greatly improved. We tested the proposed approach with Mars Express (MEX) High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images. The preliminary experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.

Alien skies planetary atmospheres from earth to exoplanets

CERN Document Server

Pont, Frédéric J

2014-01-01

Planetary atmospheres are complex and evolving entities, as mankind is rapidly coming to realise whilst attempting to understand, forecast and mitigate human-induced climate change. In the Solar System, our neighbours Venus and Mars provide striking examples of two endpoints of planetary evolution, runaway greenhouse and loss of atmosphere to space. The variety of extra-solar planets brings a wider angle to the issue: from scorching "hot jupiters'' to ocean worlds, exo-atmospheres explore many configurations unknown in the Solar System, such as iron clouds, silicate rains, extreme plate tectonics, and steam volcanoes. Exoplanetary atmospheres have recently become accessible to observations. This book puts our own climate in the wider context of the trials and tribulations of planetary atmospheres. Based on cutting-edge research, it uses a grand tour of the atmospheres of other planets to shine a new light on our own atmosphere, and its relation with life.

Planetary Gearbox Fault Detection Using Vibration Separation Techniques

Science.gov (United States)

Lewicki, David G.; LaBerge, Kelsen E.; Ehinger, Ryan T.; Fetty, Jason

2011-01-01

Studies were performed to demonstrate the capability to detect planetary gear and bearing faults in helicopter main-rotor transmissions. The work supported the Operations Support and Sustainment (OSST) program with the U.S. Army Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (AATD) and Bell Helicopter Textron. Vibration data from the OH-58C planetary system were collected on a healthy transmission as well as with various seeded-fault components. Planetary fault detection algorithms were used with the collected data to evaluate fault detection effectiveness. Planet gear tooth cracks and spalls were detectable using the vibration separation techniques. Sun gear tooth cracks were not discernibly detectable from the vibration separation process. Sun gear tooth spall defects were detectable. Ring gear tooth cracks were only clearly detectable by accelerometers located near the crack location or directly across from the crack. Enveloping provided an effective method for planet bearing inner- and outer-race spalling fault detection.

NASA's Lunar and Planetary Mapping and Modeling Program

Science.gov (United States)

Law, E.; Day, B. H.; Kim, R. M.; Bui, B.; Malhotra, S.; Chang, G.; Sadaqathullah, S.; Arevalo, E.; Vu, Q. A.

2016-12-01

NASA's Lunar and Planetary Mapping and Modeling Program produces a suite of online visualization and analysis tools. Originally designed for mission planning and science, these portals offer great benefits for education and public outreach (EPO), providing access to data from a wide range of instruments aboard a variety of past and current missions. As a component of NASA's Science EPO Infrastructure, they are available as resources for NASA STEM EPO programs, and to the greater EPO community. As new missions are planned to a variety of planetary bodies, these tools are facilitating the public's understanding of the missions and engaging the public in the process of identifying and selecting where these missions will land. There are currently three web portals in the program: the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Portal or LMMP (http://lmmp.nasa.gov), Vesta Trek (http://vestatrek.jpl.nasa.gov), and Mars Trek (http://marstrek.jpl.nasa.gov). Portals for additional planetary bodies are planned. As web-based toolsets, the portals do not require users to purchase or install any software beyond current web browsers. The portals provide analysis tools for measurement and study of planetary terrain. They allow data to be layered and adjusted to optimize visualization. Visualizations are easily stored and shared. The portals provide 3D visualization and give users the ability to mark terrain for generation of STL files that can be directed to 3D printers. Such 3D prints are valuable tools in museums, public exhibits, and classrooms - especially for the visually impaired. Along with the web portals, the program supports additional clients, web services, and APIs that facilitate dissemination of planetary data to a range of external applications and venues. NASA challenges and hackathons are also providing members of the software development community opportunities to participate in tool development and leverage data from the portals.

A comparison of Hipparcos parallaxes with planetary nebulae spectroscopic distances

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pottasch, [No Value; Acker, A

1998-01-01

The Hipparcos satellite has measured the parallax of a small sample of planetary nebulae. In this paper we consider the results for 3 planetary nebulae (PN) for which spectroscopic distances have also been determined from stellar gravities. These gravities in turn have been derived from profile

Planetary Suit Hip Bearing Model for Predicting Design vs. Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Cowley, Matthew S.; Margerum, Sarah; Harvil, Lauren; Rajulu, Sudhakar

2011-01-01

Designing a planetary suit is very complex and often requires difficult trade-offs between performance, cost, mass, and system complexity. In order to verifying that new suit designs meet requirements, full prototypes must eventually be built and tested with human subjects. Using computer models early in the design phase of new hardware development can be advantageous, allowing virtual prototyping to take place. Having easily modifiable models of the suit hard sections may reduce the time it takes to make changes to the hardware designs and then to understand their impact on suit and human performance. A virtual design environment gives designers the ability to think outside the box and exhaust design possibilities before building and testing physical prototypes with human subjects. Reductions in prototyping and testing may eventually reduce development costs. This study is an attempt to develop computer models of the hard components of the suit with known physical characteristics, supplemented with human subject performance data. Objectives: The primary objective was to develop an articulating solid model of the Mark III hip bearings to be used for evaluating suit design performance of the hip joint. Methods: Solid models of a planetary prototype (Mark III) suit s hip bearings and brief section were reverse-engineered from the prototype. The performance of the models was then compared by evaluating the mobility performance differences between the nominal hardware configuration and hardware modifications. This was accomplished by gathering data from specific suited tasks. Subjects performed maximum flexion and abduction tasks while in a nominal suit bearing configuration and in three off-nominal configurations. Performance data for the hip were recorded using state-of-the-art motion capture technology. Results: The results demonstrate that solid models of planetary suit hard segments for use as a performance design tool is feasible. From a general trend perspective

Max-Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics. Annual report 1993

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Repnow, R.; Kiko, J.

1994-01-01

Research in the fields of nuclear physics and particle physics focusses on experimental investigations into the structure of hadrons, hadron interactions, and the relation between the hadronic properties and nuclearphysics phenomena. The experimental and theoretical cosmophysics studies investigate solar neutrinos, cosmic radiation, the interstellar and extragalactic media, C 60 , the atmosphere of the planetary system, extraterrestric solid matter, and archaeometry. (DG) [de

Water Partitioning in Planetary Embryos and Protoplanets with Magma Oceans

Science.gov (United States)

Ikoma, M.; Elkins-Tanton, L.; Hamano, K.; Suckale, J.

2018-06-01

The water content of magma oceans is widely accepted as a key factor that determines whether a terrestrial planet is habitable. Water ocean mass is determined as a result not only of water delivery and loss, but also of water partitioning among several reservoirs. Here we review our current understanding of water partitioning among the atmosphere, magma ocean, and solid mantle of accreting planetary embryos and protoplanets just after giant collisions. Magma oceans are readily formed in planetary embryos and protoplanets in their accretion phase. Significant amounts of water are partitioned into magma oceans, provided the planetary building blocks are water-rich enough. Particularly important but still quite uncertain issues are how much water the planetary building blocks contain initially and how water goes out of the solidifying mantle and is finally degassed to the atmosphere. Constraints from both solar-system explorations and exoplanet observations and also from laboratory experiments are needed to resolve these issues.

A bibliography of planetary geology principal investigators and their associates, 1982 - 1983

Science.gov (United States)

Plescia, J. B.

1984-01-01

This bibliography cites recent publications by principal investigators and their associates, supported through NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications, Earth and Planetary Exploration Division, Planetary Geology Program. It serves as a companion piece to NASA TM-85127, ""Reports of Planetary Programs, 1982". Entries are listed under the following subject areas: solar system, comets, asteroids, meteorites and small bodies; geologic mapping, geomorphology, and stratigraphy; structure, tectonics, and planetary and satellite evolutions; impact craters; volcanism; fluvial, mass wasting, glacial and preglacial studies; Eolian and Arid climate studies; regolith, volatiles, atmosphere, and climate, radar; remote sensing and photometric studies; and cartography, photogrammetry, geodesy, and altimetry. An author index is provided.

The Vibration Sensors Optimum Mounting Analysis at Planetary Reduction Gearmotor Vibration Diagnostics

OpenAIRE

Ļitvinovs, D

2008-01-01

Due to the specific mechanical peculiarities, planetary reduction gearmotors were and remain the most progressive types of reduction gearboxes for industry application. Compactness, small specific gravity and, simultaneously, possibility to pass the increased loadings – here what planetary reduction gearmotors are attractive for developers and customers. Because of planetary reduction gearmotors increased amount applying in industry, increases the requirements in their diagnostics. For this p...

Hydrodynamic escape from planetary atmospheres

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Feng

Hydrodynamic escape is an important process in the formation and evolution of planetary atmospheres. Due to the existence of a singularity point near the transonic point, it is difficult to find transonic steady state solutions by solving the time-independent hydrodynamic equations. In addition to that, most previous works assume that all energy driving the escape flow is deposited in one narrow layer. This assumption not only results in less accurate solutions to the hydrodynamic escape problem, but also makes it difficult to include other chemical and physical processes in the hydrodynamic escape models. In this work, a numerical model describing the transonic hydrodynamic escape from planetary atmospheres is developed. A robust solution technique is used to solve the time dependent hydrodynamic equations. The method has been validated in an isothermal atmosphere where an analytical solution is available. The hydrodynamic model is applied to 3 cases: hydrogen escape from small orbit extrasolar planets, hydrogen escape from a hydrogen rich early Earth's atmosphere, and nitrogen/methane escape from Pluto's atmosphere. Results of simulations on extrasolar planets are in good agreement with the observations of the transiting extrasolar planet HD209458b. Hydrodynamic escape of hydrogen from other hypothetical close-in extrasolar planets are simulated and the influence of hydrogen escape on the long-term evolution of these extrasolar planets are discussed. Simulations on early Earth suggest that hydrodynamic escape of hydrogen from a hydrogen rich early Earth's atmosphere is about two orders magnitude slower than the diffusion limited escape rate. A hydrogen rich early Earth's atmosphere could have been maintained by the balance between the hydrogen escape and the supply of hydrogen into the atmosphere by volcanic outgassing. Origin of life may have occurred in the organic soup ocean created by the efficient formation of prebiotic molecules in the hydrogen rich early

Spreading the passion for scientifically useful planetary observations

Science.gov (United States)

Kardasis, E.; Vourliotis, E.; Bellias, I.; Maravelias, G.; Vakalopoulos, E.; Papadeas, P.; Marouda, K.; Voutyras, O.

2015-10-01

Τhe "March 2015 - Planetary Observation Project (POP)" was a series of talks and hands-on workshops focused on planetary observation organized in March 2015 by the planetary section of the Hellenic Amateur Astronomy Association. Building on our previous experience (Voutyras et al. 2013), which also includes more than 500 attendants in our 2013-2014 series of lectures in Astronomy, we identified that there is a lack of more focused lectures/workshops on observing techniques. In particular, POP's structure included two talks and two workshops aiming to inspire and educate astronomy enthusiasts. The talks tried to stimulate the participants about the importance of ground-based observations by presenting the most current scientific news and puzzling problems that we are facing in the observation of planets. During the hands-on workshops the beauty of planetary observation was used to inspire participants. However, we trained participants on observing techniques and image processing to enable them to produce scientifically useful results. All POP's events were open to the public and free, meaning both out-of-charge and freely available material provided to the participants (through our website). The project offered attendants unique experiences that may have a significant impact with potential lifelong benefits. In this work we present an overview of the project structure that may work as a prototype for similar outreach programs.

Small reactor power systems for manned planetary surface bases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bloomfield, H.S.

1987-12-01

A preliminary feasibility study of the potential application of small nuclear reactor space power systems to manned planetary surface base missions was conducted. The purpose of the study was to identify and assess the technology, performance, and safety issues associated with integration of reactor power systems with an evolutionary manned planetary surface exploration scenario. The requirements and characteristics of a variety of human-rated modular reactor power system configurations selected for a range of power levels from 25 kWe to hundreds of kilowatts is described. Trade-off analyses for reactor power systems utilizing both man-made and indigenous shielding materials are provided to examine performance, installation and operational safety feasibility issues. The results of this study have confirmed the preliminary feasibility of a wide variety of small reactor power plant configurations for growth oriented manned planetary surface exploration missions. The capability for power level growth with increasing manned presence, while maintaining safe radiation levels, was favorably assessed for nominal 25 to 100 kWe modular configurations. No feasibility limitations or technical barriers were identified and the use of both distance and indigenous planetary soil material for human rated radiation shielding were shown to be viable and attractive options.

Small reactor power systems for manned planetary surface bases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bloomfield, H.S.

1987-12-01

A preliminary feasibility study of the potential application of small nuclear reactor space power systems to manned planetary surface base missions was conducted. The purpose of the study was to identify and assess the technology, performance, and safety issues associated with integration of reactor power systems with an evolutionary manned planetary surface exploration scenario. The requirements and characteristics of a variety of human-rated modular reactor power system configurations selected for a range of power levels from 25 kWe to hundreds of kilowatts is described. Trade-off analyses for reactor power systems utilizing both man-made and indigenous shielding materials are provided to examine performance, installation and operational safety feasibility issues. The results of this study have confirmed the preliminary feasibility of a wide variety of small reactor power plant configurations for growth oriented manned planetary surface exploration missions. The capability for power level growth with increasing manned presence, while maintaining safe radiation levels, was favorably assessed for nominal 25 to 100 kWe modular configurations. No feasibility limitations or technical barriers were identified and the use of both distance and indigenous planetary soil material for human rated radiation shielding were shown to be viable and attractive options

Robots and Humans in Planetary Exploration: Working Together?

Science.gov (United States)

Landis, Geoffrey A.; Lyons, Valerie (Technical Monitor)

2002-01-01

Today's approach to human-robotic cooperation in planetary exploration focuses on using robotic probes as precursors to human exploration. A large portion of current NASA planetary surface exploration is focussed on Mars, and robotic probes are seen as precursors to human exploration in: Learning about operation and mobility on Mars; Learning about the environment of Mars; Mapping the planet and selecting landing sites for human mission; Demonstration of critical technology; Manufacture fuel before human presence, and emplace elements of human-support infrastructure

Fluvial geomorphology on Earth-like planetary surfaces: A review.

Science.gov (United States)

Baker, Victor R; Hamilton, Christopher W; Burr, Devon M; Gulick, Virginia C; Komatsu, Goro; Luo, Wei; Rice, James W; Rodriguez, J A P

2015-09-15

Morphological evidence for ancient channelized flows (fluvial and fluvial-like landforms) exists on the surfaces of all of the inner planets and on some of the satellites of the Solar System. In some cases, the relevant fluid flows are related to a planetary evolution that involves the global cycling of a volatile component (water for Earth and Mars; methane for Saturn's moon Titan). In other cases, as on Mercury, Venus, Earth's moon, and Jupiter's moon Io, the flows were of highly fluid lava. The discovery, in 1972, of what are now known to be fluvial channels and valleys on Mars sparked a major controversy over the role of water in shaping the surface of that planet. The recognition of the fluvial character of these features has opened unresolved fundamental questions about the geological history of water on Mars, including the presence of an ancient ocean and the operation of a hydrological cycle during the earliest phases of planetary history. Other fundamental questions posed by fluvial and fluvial-like features on planetary bodies include the possible erosive action of large-scale outpourings of very fluid lavas, such as those that may have produced the remarkable canali forms on Venus; the ability of exotic fluids, such as methane, to create fluvial-like landforms, as observed on Saturn's moon, Titan; and the nature of sedimentation and erosion under different conditions of planetary surface gravity. Planetary fluvial geomorphology also illustrates fundamental epistemological and methodological issues, including the role of analogy in geomorphological/geological inquiry.

Physics of fully ionized regions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Flower, D.

1975-01-01

In this paper the term fully ionised regions is taken to embrace both planetary nebulae and the so-called 'H II' regions referred to as H + regions. Whilst these two types of gaseous nebulae are very different from an evolutionary standpoint, they are physically very similar, being characterised by photoionisation of a low-density plasma by a hot star. (Auth.)

Investigations on physics of planetary atmospheres and small bodies of the Solar system, extrasolar planets and disk structures around the stars

Science.gov (United States)

Vidmachenko, A. P.; Delets, O. S.; Dlugach, J. M.; Zakhozhay, O. V.; Kostogryz, N. M.; Krushevska, V. M.; Kuznyetsova, Y. G.; Morozhenko, O. V.; Nevodovskyi, P. V.; Ovsak, O. S.; Rozenbush, O. E.; Romanyuk, Ya. O.; Shavlovskiy, V. I.; Yanovitskij, E. G.

2015-12-01

The history and main becoming stages of Planetary system physics Department of the Main astronomical observatory of National academy of Sciences of Ukraine are considered. Fundamental subjects of department researches and science achievements of employees are presented. Fields of theoretical and experimental researches are Solar system planets and their satellites; vertical structures of planet atmospheres; radiative transfer in planet atmospheres; exoplanet systems of Milky Way; stars having disc structures; astronomical engineering. Employees of the department carry out spectral, photometrical and polarimetrical observations of Solar system planets, exoplanet systems and stars with disc structures. 1. From the history of department 2. The main directions of department research 3. Scientific instrumentation 4. Telescopes and observation stations 5. Theoretical studies 6. The results of observations of planets and small Solar system bodies and their interpretation 7. The study of exoplanets around the stars of our galaxy 8. Spectral energy distribution of fragmenting protostellar disks 9. Cooperation with the National Technical University of Ukraine (KPI) and National University of Ukraine "Lviv Polytechnic" to study the impact of stratospheric aerosol changes on weather and climate of the Earth 10. International relations. Scientific and organizational work. Scientific conferences, congresses, symposia 11. The main achievements of the department 12. Current researches 13. Anniversaries and awards

Flyover Modeling of Planetary Pits - Undergraduate Student Instrument Project

Science.gov (United States)

Bhasin, N.; Whittaker, W.

2015-12-01

On the surface of the moon and Mars there are hundreds of skylights, which are collapsed holes that are believed to lead to underground caves. This research uses Vision, Inertial, and LIDAR sensors to build a high resolution model of a skylight as a landing vehicle flies overhead. We design and fabricate a pit modeling instrument to accomplish this task, implement software, and demonstrate sensing and modeling capability on a suborbital reusable launch vehicle flying over a simulated pit. Future missions on other planets and moons will explore pits and caves, led by the technology developed by this research. Sensor software utilizes modern graph-based optimization techniques to build 3D models using camera, LIDAR, and inertial data. The modeling performance was validated with a test flyover of a planetary skylight analog structure on the Masten Xombie sRLV. The trajectory profile closely follows that of autonomous planetary powered descent, including translational and rotational dynamics as well as shock and vibration. A hexagonal structure made of shipping containers provides a terrain feature that serves as an appropriate analog for the rim and upper walls of a cylindrical planetary skylight. The skylight analog floor, walls, and rim are modeled in elevation with a 96% coverage rate at 0.25m2 resolution. The inner skylight walls have 5.9cm2 color image resolution and the rims are 6.7cm2 with measurement precision superior to 1m. The multidisciplinary student team included students of all experience levels, with backgrounds in robotics, physics, computer science, systems, mechanical and electrical engineering. The team was commited to authentic scientific experimentation, and defined specific instrument requirements and measurable experiment objectives to verify successful completion.This work was made possible by the NASA Undergraduate Student Instrument Project Educational Flight Opportunity 2013 program. Additional support was provided by the sponsorship of an

Vision and Voyages: Lessons Learned from the Planetary Decadal Survey

Science.gov (United States)

Squyres, S. W.

2015-12-01

The most recent planetary decadal survey, entitled Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science in the Decade 2013-2022, provided a detailed set of priorities for solar system exploration. Those priorities drew on broad input from the U.S. and international planetary science community. Using white papers, town hall meetings, and open meetings of the decadal committees, community views were solicited and a consensus began to emerge. The final report summarized that consensus. Like many past decadal reports, the centerpiece of Vision and Voyages was a set of priorities for future space flight projects. Two things distinguished this report from some previous decadals. First, conservative and independent cost estimates were obtained for all of the projects that were considered. These independent cost estimates, rather than estimates generated by project advocates, were used to judge each project's expected science return per dollar. Second, rather than simply accepting NASA's ten-year projection of expected funding for planetary exploration, decision rules were provided to guide program adjustments if actual funding did not follow projections. To date, NASA has closely followed decadal recommendations. In particular, the two highest priority "flagship" missions, a Mars rover to collect samples for return to Earth and a mission to investigate a possible ocean on Europa, are both underway. The talk will describe the planetary decadal process in detail, and provide a more comprehensive assessment of NASA's response to it.

The Planetary Terrestrial Analogues Library (PTAL)

Science.gov (United States)

Werner, S. C.; Dypvik, H.; Poulet, F.; Rull Perez, F.; Bibring, J.-P.; Bultel, B.; Casanova Roque, C.; Carter, J.; Cousin, A.; Guzman, A.; Hamm, V.; Hellevang, H.; Lantz, C.; Lopez-Reyes, G.; Manrique, J. A.; Maurice, S.; Medina Garcia, J.; Navarro, R.; Negro, J. I.; Neumann, E. R.; Pilorget, C.; Riu, L.; Sætre, C.; Sansano Caramazana, A.; Sanz Arranz, A.; Sobron Grañón, F.; Veneranda, M.; Viennet, J.-C.; PTAL Team

2018-04-01

The Planetary Terrestrial Analogues Library project aims to build and exploit a spectral data base for the characterisation of the mineralogical and geological evolution of terrestrial planets and small solar system bodies.

On the evolution of central stars of planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yahel, R.Z.

1977-01-01

The evolution of nuclei of planetary nebulae has been calculated from the end of the ejection stage that produces the nebulae to the white dwarf stage. The structure of the central star is in agreement with the general picture of Finzi (1973) about the mass ejection from the progenitors of planetary nebulae. It has been found that in order to obtain evolutionary track consistent with the Harman-Seaton track (O'Dell, 1968) one has to assume that the masses of the nuclei stars are less than approximately 0.7 solar masses. The calculated evolutionary time scale of the central stars of planetary nebulae is approximately 2 x 10 4 yr. This time scale is negatively correlated with the stellar mass: the heavier the stellar mass, the shorter the evolutionary time scale. (Auth.)

Planetary Balloon-Based Science Platform Evaluation and Program Implementation

Science.gov (United States)

Dankanich, John W.; Kremic, Tibor; Hibbitts, Karl; Young, Eliot F.; Landis, Rob

2016-01-01

This report describes a study evaluating the potential for a balloon-based optical telescope as a planetary science asset to achieve decadal class science. The study considered potential science achievable and science traceability relative to the most recent planetary science decadal survey, potential platform features, and demonstration flights in the evaluation process. Science Potential and Benefits: This study confirms the cost the-benefit value for planetary science purposes. Forty-four (44) important questions of the decadal survey are at least partially addressable through balloon based capabilities. Planetary science through balloon observations can provide significant science through observations in the 300 nm to 5 m range and at longer wavelengths as well. Additionally, balloon missions have demonstrated the ability to progress from concept to observation to publication much faster than a space mission increasing the speed of science return. Planetary science from a balloon-borne platform is a relatively low-cost approach to new science measurements. This is particularly relevant within a cost-constrained planetary science budget. Repeated flights further reduce the cost of the per unit science data. Such flights offer observing time at a very competitive cost. Another advantage for planetary scientists is that a dedicated asset could provide significant new viewing opportunities not possible from the ground and allow unprecedented access to observations that cannot be realized with the time allocation pressures faced by current observing assets. In addition, flight systems that have a relatively short life cycle and where hardware is generally recovered, are excellent opportunities to train early career scientists, engineers, and project managers. The fact that balloon-borne payloads, unlike space missions, are generally recovered offers an excellent tool to test and mature instruments and other space craft systems. Desired Gondola Features: Potential

Lunar and planetary surface conditions advances in space science and technology

CERN Document Server

Weil, Nicholas A

1965-01-01

Lunar and Planetary Surface Conditions considers the inferential knowledge concerning the surfaces of the Moon and the planetary companions in the Solar System. The information presented in this four-chapter book is based on remote observations and measurements from the vantage point of Earth and on the results obtained from accelerated space program of the United States and U.S.S.R. Chapter 1 presents the prevalent hypotheses on the origin and age of the Solar System, followed by a brief description of the methods and feasibility of information acquisition concerning lunar and planetary data,

Past and future of radio occultation studies of planetary atmospheres

Science.gov (United States)

Eshleman, Von R.; Hinson, David P.; Tyler, G. Leonard; Lindal, Gunnar F.

1987-01-01

Measurements of radio waves that have propagated through planetary atmospheres have provided exploratory results on atmospheric constituents, structure, dynamics, and ionization for Venus, Mars, Titan, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Highlights of past results are reviewed in order to define and illustrate the potential of occultation and related radio studies in future planetary missions.

The TMT International Observatory: A quick overview of future opportunities for planetary science exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Dumas, Christophe; Dawson, Sandra; Otarola, Angel; Skidmore, Warren; Squires, Gordon; Travouillon, Tony; Greathouse, Thomas K.; Li, Jian-Yang; Lu, Junjun; Marchis, Frank; Meech, Karen J.; Wong, Michael H.

2015-11-01

The construction of the Thirty-Meter-Telescope International Observatory (TIO) is scheduled to take about eight years, with first-light currently planned for the horizon 2023/24, and start of science operations soon after. Its innovative design, the unequalled astronomical quality of its location, and the scientific capabilities that will be offered by its suite of instruments, all contribute to position TIO as a major ground-based facility of the next decade.In this talk, we will review the expected observing performances of the facility, which will combine adaptive-optics corrected wavefronts with powerful imaging and spectroscopic capabilities. TMT will enable ground-based exploration of our solar system - and planetary systems at large - at a dramatically enhanced sensitivity and spatial resolution across the visible and near-/thermal- infrared regimes. This sharpened vision, spanning the study of planetary atmospheres, ring systems, (cryo-)volcanic activity, small body populations (asteroids, comets, trans-Neptunian objects), and exoplanets, will shed new lights on the processes involved in the formation and evolution of our solar system, including the search for life outside the Earth, and will expand our understanding of the physical and chemical properties of extra-solar planets, complementing TIO's direct studies of planetary systems around other stars.TIO operations will meet a wide range of observing needs. Observing support associated with "classical" and "queue" modes will be offered (including some flavors of remote observing). The TIO schedule will integrate observing programs so as to optimize scientific outputs and take into account the stringent observing time constraints often encountered for observations of our solar system such as, for instance, the scheduling of target-of-oportunity observations, the implementation of short observing runs, or the support of long-term "key-science" programmes.Complementary information about TIO, and the

Robo-AO Kepler Survey. IV. The Effect of Nearby Stars on 3857 Planetary Candidate Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Ziegler, Carl; Law, Nicholas M.; Baranec, Christoph; Riddle, Reed; Duev, Dmitry A.; Howard, Ward; Jensen-Clem, Rebecca; Kulkarni, S. R.; Morton, Tim; Salama, Maïssa

2018-04-01

We present the overall statistical results from the Robo-AO Kepler planetary candidate survey, comprising of 3857 high-angular resolution observations of planetary candidate systems with Robo-AO, an automated laser adaptive optics system. These observations reveal previously unknown nearby stars blended with the planetary candidate host stars that alter the derived planetary radii or may be the source of an astrophysical false positive transit signal. In the first three papers in the survey, we detected 440 nearby stars around 3313 planetary candidate host stars. In this paper, we present observations of 532 planetary candidate host stars, detecting 94 companions around 88 stars; 84 of these companions have not previously been observed in high resolution. We also report 50 more-widely separated companions near 715 targets previously observed by Robo-AO. We derive corrected planetary radius estimates for the 814 planetary candidates in systems with a detected nearby star. If planetary candidates are equally likely to orbit the primary or secondary star, the radius estimates for planetary candidates in systems with likely bound nearby stars increase by a factor of 1.54, on average. We find that 35 previously believed rocky planet candidates are likely not rocky due to the presence of nearby stars. From the combined data sets from the complete Robo-AO KOI survey, we find that 14.5 ± 0.5% of planetary candidate hosts have a nearby star with 4″, while 1.2% have two nearby stars, and 0.08% have three. We find that 16% of Earth-sized, 13% of Neptune-sized, 14% of Saturn-sized, and 19% of Jupiter-sized planet candidates have detected nearby stars.

Journal Bearing Analysis Suite Released for Planetary Gear System Evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Brewe, David E.; Clark, David A.

2005-01-01

Planetary gear systems are an efficient means of achieving high reduction ratios with minimum space and weight. They are used in helicopter, aerospace, automobile, and many industrial applications. High-speed planetary gear systems will have significant dynamic loading and high heat generation. Hence, they need jet lubrication and associated cooling systems. For units operating in critical applications that necessitate high reliability and long life, that have very large torque loading, and that have downtime costs that are significantly greater than the initial cost, hydrodynamic journal bearings are a must. Computational and analytical tools are needed for sufficiently accurate modeling to facilitate optimal design of these systems. Sufficient physics is needed in the model to facilitate parametric studies of design conditions that enable optimal designs. The first transient journal bearing code to implement the Jacobsson-Floberg-Olsson boundary conditions, using a mass-conserving algorithm devised by Professor Emeritus Harold Elrod of Columbia University, was written by David E. Brewe of the U.S. Army at the NASA Lewis Research Center1 in 1983. Since then, new features and improved modifications have been built into the code by several contributors supported through Army and NASA funding via cooperative agreements with the University of Toledo (Professor Ted Keith, Jr., and Dr. Desikakary Vijayaraghavan) and National Research Council Programs (Dr. Vijayaraghavan). All this was conducted with the close consultation of Professor Elrod and the project management of David Brewe.

Integrating polarized light over a planetary disk applied to starlight reflected by extrasolar planets

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Stam, D.M.; de Rooij, W.A.; Cornet, G.; Hovenier, J.W.

2006-01-01

We present an efficient numerical method for integrating planetary radiation over a planetary disk, which is especially interesting for simulating signals of extrasolar planets. Our integration method is applicable to calculating the full flux vector of the disk-integrated planetary radiation, i.e.

Visual lunar and planetary astronomy

CERN Document Server

Abel, Paul G

2013-01-01

With the advent of CCDs and webcams, the focus of amateur astronomy has to some extent shifted from science to art. The object of many amateur astronomers is now to produce “stunning images” that, although beautiful, are not intended to have scientific merit. Paul Abel has been addressing this issue by promoting visual astronomy wherever possible – at talks to astronomical societies, in articles for popular science magazines, and on BBC TV’s The Sky at Night.   Visual Lunar and Planetary Astronomy is a comprehensive modern treatment of visual lunar and planetary astronomy, showing that even in the age of space telescopes and interplanetary probes it is still possible to contribute scientifically with no more than a moderately priced commercially made astronomical telescope.   It is believed that imaging and photography is somehow more objective and more accurate than the eye, and this has led to a peculiar “crisis of faith” in the human visual system and its amazing processing power. But by anal...

Annual review of earth and planetary sciences. Volume 8

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Donath, F.A.; Stehli, F.G.; Wetherill, G.W.

1980-01-01

Papers are presented on the geochemistry of evaporitic lacustrine deposits, the deformation of mantle rocks, the dynamics of sudden stratospheric warmings, the equatorial undercurrent, geomorphological processes on planetary surfaces, and rare earth elements in petrogenetic studies of igneous systems. Consideration is also given to evolutionary patterns in early Cenozoic animals, the origin and evolution of planetary atmospheres, the moons of Mars, and refractory inclusions in the Allende meteorite

MPLNET V3 Cloud and Planetary Boundary Layer Detection

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Jasper R.; Welton, Ellsworth J.; Campbell, James R.; Haftings, Phillip C.

2016-01-01

The NASA Micropulse Lidar Network Version 3 algorithms for planetary boundary layer and cloud detection are described and differences relative to the previous Version 2 algorithms are highlighted. A year of data from the Goddard Space Flight Center site in Greenbelt, MD consisting of diurnal and seasonal trends is used to demonstrate the results. Both the planetary boundary layer and cloud algorithms show significant improvement of the previous version.

Mission Implementation Constraints on Planetary Muon Radiography

Science.gov (United States)

Jones, Cathleen E.; Kedar, Sharon; Naudet, Charles; Webb, Frank

2011-01-01

Cost: Use heritage hardware, especially use a tested landing system to reduce cost (Phoenix or MSL EDL stage). The sky crane technology delivers higher mass to the surface and enables reaching targets at higher elevation, but at a higher mission cost. Rover vs. Stationary Lander: Rover-mounted instrument enables tomography, but the increased weight of the rover reduces the allowable payload weight. Mass is the critical design constraint for an instrument for a planetary mission. Many factors that are minor factors or do not enter into design considerations for terrestrial operation are important for a planetary application. (Landing site, diurnal temperature variation, instrument portability, shock/vibration)

Developing the Planetary Science Virtual Observatory

Science.gov (United States)

Erard, Stéphane; Cecconi, Baptiste; Le Sidaner, Pierre; Henry, Florence; Chauvin, Cyril; Berthier, Jérôme; André, Nicolas; Génot, Vincent; Schmitt, Bernard; Capria, Teresa; Chanteur, Gérard

2015-08-01

In the frame of the Europlanet-RI program, a prototype Virtual Observatory dedicated to Planetary Science has been set up. Most of the activity was dedicated to the definition of standards to handle data in this field. The aim was to facilitate searches in big archives as well as sparse databases, to make on-line data access and visualization possible, and to allow small data providers to make their data available in an interoperable environment with minimum effort. This system makes intensive use of studies and developments led in Astronomy (IVOA), Solar Science (HELIO), and space archive services (IPDA).The current architecture connects existing data services with IVOA or IPDA protocols whenever relevant. However, a more general standard has been devised to handle the specific complexity of Planetary Science, e.g. in terms of measurement types and coordinate frames. This protocol, named EPN-TAP, is based on TAP and includes precise requirements to describe the contents of a data service (Erard et al Astron & Comp 2014). A light framework (DaCHS/GAVO) and a procedure have been identified to install small data services, and several hands-on sessions have been organized already. The data services are declared in standard IVOA registries. Support to new data services in Europe will be provided during the proposed Europlanet H2020 program, with a focus on planetary mission support (Rosetta, Cassini…).A specific client (VESPA) has been developed at VO-Paris (http://vespa.obspm.fr). It is able to use all the mandatory parameters in EPN-TAP, plus extra parameters from individual services. A resolver for target names is also available. Selected data can be sent to VO visualization tools such as TOPCAT or Aladin though the SAMP protocol.Future steps will include the development of a connection between the VO world and GIS tools, and integration of heliophysics, planetary plasma and reference spectroscopic data.The EuroPlaNet-RI project was funded by the European

PLANETARY NEBULAE IN FACE-ON SPIRAL GALAXIES. II. PLANETARY NEBULA SPECTROSCOPY

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrmann, Kimberly A.; Ciardullo, Robin

2009-01-01

As the second step in our investigation of the mass-to-light ratio of spiral disks, we present the results of a spectroscopic survey of planetary nebulae (PNe) in five nearby, low-inclination galaxies: IC 342, M74 (NGC 628), M83 (NGC 5236), M94 (NGC 4736), and M101 (NGC 5457). Using 50 setups of the WIYN/Hydra and Blanco/Hydra spectrographs, and 25 observations with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope's Medium Resolution Spectrograph, we determine the radial velocities of 99, 102, 162, 127, and 48 PNe, respectively, to a precision better than 15 km s -1 . Although the main purpose of this data set is to facilitate dynamical mass measurements throughout the inner and outer disks of large spiral galaxies, our spectroscopy has other uses as well. Here, we co-add these spectra to show that, to first order, the [O III] and Balmer line ratios of PNe vary little over the top ∼1.5 mag of the PN luminosity function. The only obvious spectral change occurs with [N II], which increases in strength as one proceeds down the luminosity function. We also show that typical [O III]-bright planetaries have E(B - V) ∼ 0.2 of circumstellar extinction, and that this value is virtually independent of [O III] luminosity. We discuss the implications this has for understanding the population of PN progenitors.

Measuring planetary neutron albedo fluxes by remote gamma-ray sensing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haines, E.L.; Metzger, A.E.

1984-01-01

A remote-sensing γ-ray spectrometer (GRS) is capable of measuring planetary surface composition through the detection of characteristic gamma rays. In addition, the planetary neutron leakage flux may be detected by means of a thin neutron absorber surrounding the γ-ray detector which converts the neutron flux into a γ-ray flux having a unique energy signature. The γ rays representing the neutron flux are observed against interference consisting of cosmic γ rays, planetary continuum and line emission, and a variety of gamma rays arising from cosmic-ray particle interactions with the γ-ray spectrometer and spacecraft (SC). In this paper the amplitudes of planetary and non-planetary neutron fluxes are assessed and their impact on the sensitivity of measurement is calculated for a lunar orbiter mission and a comet nucleus rendezvous mission. For a 100 h observation period from an altitude of 100 km, a GRS on a lunar orbiter can detect a thermal neutron albedo flux as low as 0.002 cm -2 s -1 and measure the expected flux of approx.=0.6 cm -2 s -1 with an uncertainty of 0.001 cm -2 s -1 . A GRS rendezvousing with a comet at a distance equal to the radius of the comet's nucleus, again for a 100 h observation time, should detect a thermal neutron albedo flux at a level of 0.006 cm -2 s -1 and measure the expected flux of approx.=0.4 cm -2 s -1 with an uncertainty of 0.004 cm -2 s -1 . Mapping the planetary neutron flux jointly with the direct detection of H will not only provide a more accurate model for translating observed γ-ray fluxes into concentrations but will also extend the effective sampling depth and should provide a capability for simple stratigraphic modeling of hydrogen. (orig.)

Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC)

Science.gov (United States)

Clampin, Mark

2009-01-01

The Extrasolar Planetary Imaging Coronagraph (EPIC) is a proposed NASA Exoplanet Probe mission to image and characterize extrasolar giant planets. EPIC will provide insights into the physical nature and architecture of a variety of planets in other solar systems. Initially, it will detect and characterize the atmospheres of planets identified by radial velocity surveys, determine orbital inclinations and masses and characterize the atmospheres around A and F type stars which cannot be found with RV techniques. It will also observe the inner spatial structure of exozodiacal disks. EPIC has a heliocentric Earth trailing drift-away orbit, with a 5 year mission lifetime. The robust mission design is simple and flexible ensuring mission success while minimizing cost and risk. The science payload consists of a heritage optical telescope assembly (OTA), and visible nulling coronagraph (VNC) instrument. The instrument achieves a contrast ratio of 10^9 over a 5 arcsecond field-of-view with an unprecedented inner working angle of 0.13 arcseconds over the spectral range of 440-880 nm. The telescope is a 1.65 meter off-axis Cassegrain with an OTA wavefront error of lambda/9, which when coupled to the VNC greatly reduces the requirements on the large scale optics.

Interoperability In The New Planetary Science Archive (PSA)

Science.gov (United States)

Rios, C.; Barbarisi, I.; Docasal, R.; Macfarlane, A. J.; Gonzalez, J.; Arviset, C.; Grotheer, E.; Besse, S.; Martinez, S.; Heather, D.; De Marchi, G.; Lim, T.; Fraga, D.; Barthelemy, M.

2015-12-01

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, there is a greater need to provide interoperability with software and applications that are commonly being used globally. For this purpose, the development of the new Planetary Science Archive (PSA), by the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) Science Data Centre (ESDC), is focused on building a modern science archive that takes into account internationally recognised standards in order to provide access to the archive through tools from third parties, for example by the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS), the VESPA project from the Virtual Observatory of Paris as well as other international institutions. The protocols and standards currently being supported by the new Planetary Science Archive at this time are the Planetary Data Access Protocol (PDAP), the EuroPlanet-Table Access Protocol (EPN-TAP) and Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards. The architecture of the PSA consists of a Geoserver (an open-source map server), the goal of which is to support use cases such as the distribution of search results, sharing and processing data through a OGC Web Feature Service (WFS) and a Web Map Service (WMS). This server also allows the retrieval of requested information in several standard output formats like Keyhole Markup Language (KML), Geography Markup Language (GML), shapefile, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and Comma Separated Values (CSV), among others. The provision of these various output formats enables end-users to be able to transfer retrieved data into popular applications such as Google Mars and NASA World Wind.

Emission lines of Mg2 and Ca2 in planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gurzadyan, G.A.

1979-01-01

Conditions of exciting resonance lines in the emission of ionized magnesium (lambda lambda 2796+2803 Mg2) and calcium (lambda lambda 3934+3968 Ca2) in planetary nebulae have been analyzed. It is shown that the allowed lines are excited with the same mechanism, as the forbidden lines, i.e. inelastic electron collisions, but not with common fluorescence. The emission line lambda 2800 Mg2 of enough force can be observed only in the spectra of planetary nebulae with mean excitation (IC 2149) as well as in the spectra of diffuse nebulae. The line must not be observed in high-excited planetary nebulae (NGC 7026, 7662). The absence of emission lines H and K Ca2 in planetary nebulae spectra results from the fact, that their expected intensity is by 3-4 orders less than the intensity of the line lambda 2800 Mg2 or Hsub(β) hydrogen

Summary and abstracts of the Planetary Data Workshop, June 2012

Science.gov (United States)

Gaddis, Lisa R.; Hare, Trent; Beyer, Ross

2014-01-01

The recent boom in the volume of digital data returned by international planetary science missions continues to both delight and confound users of those data. In just the past decade, the Planetary Data System (PDS), NASA’s official archive of scientific results from U.S. planetary missions, has seen a nearly 50-fold increase in the amount of data and now serves nearly half a petabyte. In only a handful of years, this volume is expected to approach 1 petabyte (1,000 terabytes or 1 quadrillion bytes). Although data providers, archivists, users, and developers have done a creditable job of providing search functions, download capabilities, and analysis and visualization tools, the new wealth of data necessitates more frequent and extensive discussion among users and developers about their current capabilities and their needs for improved and new tools. A workshop to address these and other topics, “Planetary Data: A Workshop for Users and Planetary Software Developers,” was held June 25–29, 2012, at Northern Arizona University (NAU) in Flagstaff, Arizona. A goal of the workshop was to present a summary of currently available tools, along with hands-on training and how-to guides, for acquiring, processing and working with a variety of digital planetary data. The meeting emphasized presentations by data users and mission providers during days 1 and 2, and developers had the floor on days 4 and 5 using an “unconference” format for day 5. Day 3 featured keynote talks by Laurence Soderblom (U.S. Geological Survey, USGS) and Dan Crichton (Jet Propulsion Laboratory, JPL) followed by a panel discussion, and then research and technical discussions about tools and capabilities under recent or current development. Software and tool demonstrations were held in break-out sessions in parallel with the oral session. Nearly 150 data users and developers from across the globe attended, and 22 National Aeronautics and space Administration (NASA) and non-NASA data providers

Foundations of high-energy-density physics physical processes of matter at extreme conditions

CERN Document Server

Larsen, Jon

2017-01-01

High-energy-density physics explores the dynamics of matter at extreme conditions. This encompasses temperatures and densities far greater than we experience on Earth. It applies to normal stars, exploding stars, active galaxies, and planetary interiors. High-energy-density matter is found on Earth in the explosion of nuclear weapons and in laboratories with high-powered lasers or pulsed-power machines. The physics explored in this book is the basis for large-scale simulation codes needed to interpret experimental results whether from astrophysical observations or laboratory-scale experiments. The key elements of high-energy-density physics covered are gas dynamics, ionization, thermal energy transport, and radiation transfer, intense electromagnetic waves, and their dynamical coupling. Implicit in this is a fundamental understanding of hydrodynamics, plasma physics, atomic physics, quantum mechanics, and electromagnetic theory. Beginning with a summary of the topics and exploring the major ones in depth, thi...

Research of Planetary Gear Fault Diagnosis Based on Permutation Entropy of CEEMDAN and ANFIS

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuai, Moshen; Cheng, Gang; Pang, Y.; Li, Yong

2018-01-01

For planetary gear has the characteristics of small volume, light weight and large transmission ratio, it is widely used in high speed and high power mechanical system. Poor working conditions result in frequent failures of planetary gear. A method is proposed for diagnosing faults in planetary gear

Smart Rotorcraft Field Assistants for Terrestrial and Planetary Science

Science.gov (United States)

Young, Larry A.; Aiken, Edwin W.; Briggs, Geoffrey A.

2004-01-01

Field science in extreme terrestrial environments is often difficult and sometimes dangerous. Field seasons are also often short in duration. Robotic field assistants, particularly small highly mobile rotary-wing platforms, have the potential to significantly augment a field season's scientific return on investment for geology and astrobiology researchers by providing an entirely new suite of sophisticated field tools. Robotic rotorcraft and other vertical lift planetary aerial vehicle also hold promise for supporting planetary science missions.

Enviromnental Control and Life Support Systems for Mars Missions - Issues and Concerns for Planetary Protection

Science.gov (United States)

Barta, Daniel J.; Anderson, Molly S.; Lange, Kevin

2015-01-01

Planetary protection represents an additional set of requirements that generally have not been considered by developers of technologies for Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS). Planetary protection guidelines will affect the kind of operations, processes, and functions that can take place during future human planetary exploration missions. Ultimately, there will be an effect on mission costs, including the mission trade space when planetary protection requirements begin to drive vehicle deisgn in a concrete way. Planetary protection requirements need to be considered early in technology development and mission programs in order to estimate these impacts and push back on requirements or find efficient ways to perform necessary functions. It is expected that planetary protection will be a significant factor during technology selection and system architecture design for future missions.

Planetary mapping—The datamodel's perspective and GIS framework

Science.gov (United States)

van Gasselt, S.; Nass, A.

2011-09-01

Demands for a broad range of integrated geospatial data-analysis tools and methods for planetary data organization have been growing considerably since the late 1990s when a plethora of missions equipped with new instruments entered planetary orbits or landed on the surface. They sent back terabytes of new data which soon became accessible for the scientific community and public and which needed to be organized. On the terrestrial side, issues of data access, organization and utilization for scientific and economic analyses are handled by using a range of well-established geographic information systems (GIS) that also found their way into the field of planetary sciences in the late 1990s. We here address key issues concerning the field of planetary mapping by making use of established GIS environments and discuss methods of addressing data organization and mapping requirements by using an easily integrable datamodel that is - for the time being - designed as file-geodatabase (FileGDB) environment in ESRI's ArcGIS. A major design-driving requirement for this datamodel is its extensibility and scalability for growing scientific as well as technical needs, e.g., the utilization of such a datamodel for surface mapping of different planetary objects as defined by their respective reference system and by using different instrument data. Furthermore, it is a major goal to construct a generic model which allows to perform combined geologic as well as geomorphologic mapping tasks making use of international standards without loss of information and by maintaining topologic integrity. An integration of such a datamodel within a geospatial DBMS context can practically be performed by individuals as well as groups without having to deal with the details of administrative tasks and data ingestion issues. Besides the actual mapping, key components of such a mapping datamodel deal with the organization and search for image-sensor data and previous mapping efforts, as well as the

Torsional vibration signal analysis as a diagnostic tool for planetary gear fault detection

Science.gov (United States)

Xue, Song; Howard, Ian

2018-02-01

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of using the torsional vibration signal as a diagnostic tool for planetary gearbox faults detection. The traditional approach for condition monitoring of the planetary gear uses a stationary transducer mounted on the ring gear casing to measure all the vibration data when the planet gears pass by with the rotation of the carrier arm. However, the time variant vibration transfer paths between the stationary transducer and the rotating planet gear modulate the resultant vibration spectra and make it complex. Torsional vibration signals are theoretically free from this modulation effect and therefore, it is expected to be much easier and more effective to diagnose planetary gear faults using the fault diagnostic information extracted from the torsional vibration. In this paper, a 20 degree of freedom planetary gear lumped-parameter model was developed to obtain the gear dynamic response. In the model, the gear mesh stiffness variations are the main internal vibration generation mechanism and the finite element models were developed for calculation of the sun-planet and ring-planet gear mesh stiffnesses. Gear faults on different components were created in the finite element models to calculate the resultant gear mesh stiffnesses, which were incorporated into the planetary gear model later on to obtain the faulted vibration signal. Some advanced signal processing techniques were utilized to analyses the fault diagnostic results from the torsional vibration. It was found that the planetary gear torsional vibration not only successfully detected the gear fault, but also had the potential to indicate the location of the gear fault. As a result, the planetary gear torsional vibration can be considered an effective alternative approach for planetary gear condition monitoring.

The four hundred years of planetary science since Galileo and Kepler.

Science.gov (United States)

Burns, Joseph A

2010-07-29

For 350 years after Galileo's discoveries, ground-based telescopes and theoretical modelling furnished everything we knew about the Sun's planetary retinue. Over the past five decades, however, spacecraft visits to many targets transformed these early notions, revealing the diversity of Solar System bodies and displaying active planetary processes at work. Violent events have punctuated the histories of many planets and satellites, changing them substantially since their birth. Contemporary knowledge has finally allowed testable models of the Solar System's origin to be developed and potential abodes for extraterrestrial life to be explored. Future planetary research should involve focused studies of selected targets, including exoplanets.

Lunar and Planetary Science XXXII

Science.gov (United States)

2001-01-01

This CD-ROM publication contains the extended abstracts that were accepted for presentation at the 32nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held at Houston, TX, March 12-16, 2001. The papers are presented in PDF format and are indexed by author, keyword, meteorite, program and samples for quick reference.

Radiative Transfer Modeling in Proto-planetary Disks

Science.gov (United States)

Kasper, David; Jang-Condell, Hannah; Kloster, Dylan

2016-01-01

Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) are rich astronomical research environments. Planets form in circumstellar disks of gas and dust around YSOs. With ever increasing capabilities of the observational instruments designed to look at these proto-planetary disks, most notably GPI, SPHERE, and ALMA, more accurate interfaces must be made to connect modeling of the disks with observation. PaRTY (Parallel Radiative Transfer in YSOs) is a code developed previously to model the observable density and temperature structure of such a disk by self-consistently calculating the structure of the disk based on radiative transfer physics. We present upgrades we are implementing to the PaRTY code to improve its accuracy and flexibility. These upgrades include: creating a two-sided disk model, implementing a spherical coordinate system, and implementing wavelength-dependent opacities. These upgrades will address problems in the PaRTY code of infinite optical thickness, calculation under/over-resolution, and wavelength-independent photon penetration depths, respectively. The upgraded code will be used to better model disk perturbations resulting from planet formation.

The study about planetary gearbox virtual prototyping with nonlinear gear contact characteristics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yin Huabing; Zhou Guangming

2010-01-01

The virtual prototypes of gear transmission system built in most multi-body dynamic software have difficulties in describing the gear mesh characteristics. The gear mesh contact is modelled as rigid contact and this is not accurate for the gear mesh contact, which is elastic or flexible. The gear contact formula used in the multi-body dynamic software does not reveal the gear contact nonlinear stiffness characteristic. The model built with gear meshing contact is difficult to solve because of its time-consuming algorithm. In the paper a new method is put forward to build the virtual prototype of planetary gearbox system according to the nonlinear mesh stiffness and mesh phase obtained through FEM models. This new FEM method of gear mesh stiffness calculation is much more accurate than the common formulas. The gear mesh nonlinear stiffness of sun gear- pinion and pinion-ring gear of all the planetary gear sets in gearbox are obtained through MATALB code, which is used to read and plot the analyzing result data. The gear mesh phase differences between different pinions with suns or rings of different planetary gear set can be also obtained. With all these data modelled in simulink (or other software) and integrated with the multi-body dynamic planetary gearbox model and the gear meshing contact problem in multi-body gear models is solved easily and accurately. The interfaces for gear mesh stiffness and mesh phases are designed for multi-body dynamic model and simulink. The nonlinear planetary gear set prototyping models are integrated to become the whole planetary gear box model and the whole vehicle system model built in multi-body dynamic software can be integrated to simulate different duty conditions. At last high speed input is put into the nonlinear planetary transmission model and the different duty cases are simulated. The dynamic characteristics of different parts are obtained. The dynamic characteristic comparison between nonlinear and linear models is made

A Methodology of Designing the Teeth Conjugation in a Planetary Roller Screw

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lisowski Filip

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the methodology for designing the teeth conjunction of planetary gears in the planetary roller screw mechanism. A function of the planetary gears is to synchronize an operation of rollers in order to avoid axial displacements. A condition of the correct operation is no axial movement of rollers in relation to the nut. The planetary gears are integral parts of rollers and therefore an operation of the gear transmissions has a direct impact on cooperation of the screw, rollers and the nut. The proper design of gear engagements is essential for reducing slippage on surfaces of the cooperating threaded elements. For this purpose, in a designing method, both the limitations of operation and kinematic conditions of rollers’ operation have to be taken into account.

Planetary Rings

Science.gov (United States)

Nicholson, P. D.

2001-11-01

A revolution in the studies in planetary rings studies occurred in the period 1977--1981, with the serendipitous discovery of the narrow, dark rings of Uranus, the first Voyager images of the tenuous jovian ring system, and the many spectacular images returned during the twin Voyager flybys of Saturn. In subsequent years, ground-based stellar occultations, HST observations, and the Voyager flybys of Uranus (1986) and Neptune (1989), as well as a handful of Galileo images, provided much additional information. Along with the completely unsuspected wealth of detail these observations revealed came an unwelcome problem: are the rings ancient or are we privileged to live at a special time in history? The answer to this still-vexing question may lie in the complex gravitational interactions recent studies have revealed between the rings and their retinues of attendant satellites. Among the four known ring systems, we see elegant examples of Lindblad and corotation resonances (first invoked in the context of galactic disks), electromagnetic resonances, spiral density waves and bending waves, narrow ringlets which exhibit internal modes due to collective instabilities, sharp-edged gaps maintained via tidal torques from embedded moonlets, and tenuous dust belts created by meteoroid impact onto parent bodies. Perhaps most puzzling is Saturn's multi-stranded, clumpy F ring, which continues to defy a simple explanation 20 years after it was first glimpsed in grainy images taken by Pioneer 11. Voyager and HST images reveal a complex, probably chaotic, dynamical interaction between unseen parent bodies within this ring and its two shepherd satellites, Pandora and Prometheus. The work described here reflects contributions by Joe Burns, Jeff Cuzzi, Luke Dones, Dick French, Peter Goldreich, Colleen McGhee, Carolyn Porco, Mark Showalter, and Bruno Sicardy, as well as those of the author. This research has been supported by NASA's Planetary Geology and Geophysics program and the

Planets around pulsars - Implications for planetary formation

Science.gov (United States)

Bodenheimer, Peter

1993-01-01

Data on planets around pulsars are summarized, and different models intended to explain the formation mechanism are described. Both theoretical and observational evidence suggest that very special circumstances are required for the formation of planetary systems around pulsars, namely, the prior presence of a millisecond pulsar with a close binary companion, probably a low mass main-sequence star. It is concluded that the discovery of two planets around PSR 1257+12 is important for better understanding the problems of dynamics and stellar evolution. The process of planetary formation should be learned through intensive studies of the properties of disks near young objects and application of techniques for detection of planets around main-sequence solar-type stars.

Investments by NASA to build planetary protection capability

Science.gov (United States)

Buxbaum, Karen; Conley, Catharine; Lin, Ying; Hayati, Samad

NASA continues to invest in capabilities that will enable or enhance planetary protection planning and implementation for future missions. These investments are critical to the Mars Exploration Program and will be increasingly important as missions are planned for exploration of the outer planets and their icy moons. Since the last COSPAR Congress, there has been an opportunity to respond to the advice of NRC-PREVCOM and the analysis of the MEPAG Special Regions Science Analysis Group. This stimulated research into such things as expanded bioburden reduction options, modern molecular assays and genetic inventory capability, and approaches to understand or avoid recontamination of spacecraft parts and samples. Within NASA, a portfolio of PP research efforts has been supported through the NASA Office of Planetary Protection, the Mars Technology Program, and the Mars Program Office. The investment strategy focuses on technology investments designed to enable future missions and reduce their costs. In this presentation we will provide an update on research and development supported by NASA to enhance planetary protection capability. Copyright 2008 California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledged.

Planetary Taxonomy: Label Round Bodies "Worlds"

Science.gov (United States)

Margot, Jean-Luc; Levison, H. F.

2009-05-01

The classification of planetary bodies is as important to Astronomy as taxonomy is to other sciences. The etymological, historical, and IAU definitions of planet rely on a dynamical criterion, but some authors prefer a geophysical criterion based on "roundness". Although the former criterion is superior when it comes to classifying newly discovered objects, the conflict need not exist if we agree to identify the subset of "round" planetary objects as "worlds". This addition to the taxonomy would conveniently recognize that "round" objects such as Earth, Europa, Titan, Triton, and Pluto share some common planetary-type processes regardless of their distance from the host star. Some of these worlds are planets, others are not. Defining how round is round and handling the inevitable transition objects are non-trivial tasks. Because images at sufficient resolution are not available for the overwhelming majority of newly discovered objects, the degree of roundness is not a directly observable property and is inherently problematic as a basis for classification. We can tolerate some uncertainty in establishing the "world" status of a newly discovered object, and still establish its planet or satellite status with existing dynamical criteria. Because orbital parameters are directly observable, and because mass can often be measured either from orbital perturbations or from the presence of companions, the dynamics provide a robust and practical planet classification scheme. It may also be possible to determine which bodies are dynamically dominant from observations of the population magnitude/size distribution.

3D Visualization for Planetary Missions

Science.gov (United States)

DeWolfe, A. W.; Larsen, K.; Brain, D.

2018-04-01

We have developed visualization tools for viewing planetary orbiters and science data in 3D for both Earth and Mars, using the Cesium Javascript library, allowing viewers to visualize the position and orientation of spacecraft and science data.

Exploring the Largest Mass Fraction of the Solar System: the Case for Planetary Interiors

Science.gov (United States)

Danielson, L. R.; Draper, D.; Righter, K.; McCubbin, F.; Boyce, J.

2017-01-01

Why explore planetary interiors: The typical image that comes to mind for planetary science is that of a planet surface. And while surface data drive our exploration of evolved geologic processes, it is the interiors of planets that hold the key to planetary origins via accretionary and early differentiation processes. It is that initial setting of the bulk planet composition that sets the stage for all geologic processes that follow. But nearly all of the mass of planets is inaccessible to direct examination, making experimentation an absolute necessity for full planetary exploration.

Cost estimation model for advanced planetary programs, fourth edition

Science.gov (United States)

Spadoni, D. J.

1983-01-01

The development of the planetary program cost model is discussed. The Model was updated to incorporate cost data from the most recent US planetary flight projects and extensively revised to more accurately capture the information in the historical cost data base. This data base is comprised of the historical cost data for 13 unmanned lunar and planetary flight programs. The revision was made with a two fold objective: to increase the flexibility of the model in its ability to deal with the broad scope of scenarios under consideration for future missions, and to maintain and possibly improve upon the confidence in the model's capabilities with an expected accuracy of 20%. The Model development included a labor/cost proxy analysis, selection of the functional forms of the estimating relationships, and test statistics. An analysis of the Model is discussed and two sample applications of the cost model are presented.

Data Preservation and Curation for the Planetary Science Community

Science.gov (United States)

Hughes, J. S.; Crichton, D. J.; Joyner, R.; Hardman, S.; Rye, E.

2013-12-01

The Planetary Data System (PDS) has just released PDS4 Version 1.0, its next generation data standards for the planetary science archive. These data standards are the result of a multi-year effort to develop an information model based on accepted standards for data preservation, data curation, metadata management, and model development. The resulting information model is subsequently used to drive information system development from the generation of data standards documentation to the configuration of federated registries and search engines. This paper will provide an overview of the development of the PDS4 Information Model and focus on the application of the Open Archive Information System (OAIS) Reference Model - ISO 14721:2003, the Metadata Registry (MDR) Standard - ISO/IEC 11179, and the E-Business XML Standard to help ensure the long-term preservation and curation of planetary science data. Copyright 2013 California Institute of Technology Government sponsorship acknowledged

HM Sagittae as a young planetary nebula

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwok, S.; Purton, C.R.

1979-01-01

HM Sagittae is suggested to be a very young planetary nebula recently transformed from a red-giant star through continuous mass loss. The observational data for HM Sge have been analyzed in terms of the interacting stellar wind model of planetary nebula formation. The model is in accord with virtually all the spectral data available--radio, optical, and infrared--as well as with the remarkable brightening of HM Sge observed in 1975. In particular, all three gaseous components predicted by the model are observed in the optical spectrum. The density in the newly formed shell is found to be at least 5 x 10 7 cm -3 , a value considerably higher than that found by the conventional analysis, which assumes a single-component homogeneous nebula. The radio spectrum is dominated by free-free emission from the remnant red-giant wind. The infrared spectrum suggests the presence of two dust components, one consisting of silicate grains left over from the red-giant stage and the other of grains newly formed after the 1975 brightening. The low observed shell mass is consistent with the interacting stellar wind model but is not consistent with the conventional sudden-ejection model of planetary nebula formation

Degassing of reduced carbon from planetary basalts.

Science.gov (United States)

Wetzel, Diane T; Rutherford, Malcolm J; Jacobsen, Steven D; Hauri, Erik H; Saal, Alberto E

2013-05-14

Degassing of planetary interiors through surface volcanism plays an important role in the evolution of planetary bodies and atmospheres. On Earth, carbon dioxide and water are the primary volatile species in magmas. However, little is known about the speciation and degassing of carbon in magmas formed on other planets (i.e., Moon, Mars, Mercury), where the mantle oxidation state [oxygen fugacity (fO2)] is different from that of the Earth. Using experiments on a lunar basalt composition, we confirm that carbon dissolves as carbonate at an fO2 higher than -0.55 relative to the iron wustite oxygen buffer (IW-0.55), whereas at a lower fO2, we discover that carbon is present mainly as iron pentacarbonyl and in smaller amounts as methane in the melt. The transition of carbon speciation in mantle-derived melts at fO2 less than IW-0.55 is associated with a decrease in carbon solubility by a factor of 2. Thus, the fO2 controls carbon speciation and solubility in mantle-derived melts even more than previous data indicate, and the degassing of reduced carbon from Fe-rich basalts on planetary bodies would produce methane-bearing, CO-rich early atmospheres with a strong greenhouse potential.

Earth as an Exoplanet: Lessons in Recognizing Planetary Habitability

Science.gov (United States)

Meadows, Victoria; Robinson, Tyler; Misra, Amit; Ennico, Kimberly; Sparks, William B.; Claire, Mark; Crisp, David; Schwieterman, Edward; Bussey, D. Ben J.; Breiner, Jonathan

2015-01-01

Earth will always be our best-studied example of a habitable world. While extrasolar planets are unlikely to look exactly like Earth, they may share key characteristics, such as oceans, clouds and surface inhomogeneity. Earth's globally-averaged characteristics can therefore help us to recognize planetary habitability in data-limited exoplanet observations. One of the most straightforward ways to detect habitability will be via detection of 'glint', specular reflectance from an ocean (Robinson et al., 2010). Other methods include undertaking a census of atmospheric greenhouse gases, or attempting to measure planetary surface temperature and pressure, to determine if liquid water would be feasible on the planetary surface. Here we present recent research on detecting planetary habitability, led by the NASA Astrobiology Institute's Virtual Planetary Laboratory Team. This work includes a collaboration with the NASA Lunar Science Institute on the detection of ocean glint and ozone absorption using Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) Earth observations (Robinson et al., 2014). This data/model comparison provides the first observational test of a technique that could be used to determine exoplanet habitability from disk-integrated observations at visible and near-infrared wavelengths. We find that the VPL spectral Earth model is in excellent agreement with the LCROSS Earth data, and can be used to reliably predict Earth's appearance at a range of phases relevant to exoplanet observations. Determining atmospheric surface pressure and temperature directly for a potentially habitable planet will be challenging due to the lack of spatial-resolution, presence of clouds, and difficulty in spectrally detecting many bulk constituents of terrestrial atmospheres. Additionally, Rayleigh scattering can be masked by absorbing gases and absorption from the underlying surface. However, new techniques using molecular dimers of oxygen (Misra et al., 2014) and nitrogen

Planetary Science Exploration Through 2050: Strategic Gaps in Commercial and International Partnerships

Science.gov (United States)

Ghosh, A.

2017-02-01

Planetary science will see greater participation from the commercial sector and international space agencies. It is critical to understand how these entities can partner with NASA through 2050 and help realize NASA's goals in planetary science.

Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruce M. Campbell

2017-12-01

Full Text Available We explore the role of agriculture in destabilizing the Earth system at the planetary scale, through examining nine planetary boundaries, or "safe limits": land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, biosphere integrity, climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, and introduction of novel entities. Two planetary boundaries have been fully transgressed, i.e., are at high risk, biosphere integrity and biogeochemical flows, and agriculture has been the major driver of the transgression. Three are in a zone of uncertainty i.e., at increasing risk, with agriculture the major driver of two of those, land-system change and freshwater use, and a significant contributor to the third, climate change. Agriculture is also a significant or major contributor to change for many of those planetary boundaries still in the safe zone. To reduce the role of agriculture in transgressing planetary boundaries, many interventions will be needed, including those in broader food systems.

Sealed Planetary Return Canister (SPRC), Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Sample return missions have primary importance in future planetary missions. A basic requirement is that samples be returned in pristine, uncontaminated condition,...

A Method Based on Multi-Sensor Data Fusion for Fault Detection of Planetary Gearboxes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Detong Kong

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Studies on fault detection and diagnosis of planetary gearboxes are quite limited compared with those of fixed-axis gearboxes. Different from fixed-axis gearboxes, planetary gearboxes exhibit unique behaviors, which invalidate fault diagnosis methods that work well for fixed-axis gearboxes. It is a fact that for systems as complex as planetary gearboxes, multiple sensors mounted on different locations provide complementary information on the health condition of the systems. On this basis, a fault detection method based on multi-sensor data fusion is introduced in this paper. In this method, two features developed for planetary gearboxes are used to characterize the gear health conditions, and an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS is utilized to fuse all features from different sensors. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, experiments are carried out on a planetary gearbox test rig, on which multiple accelerometers are mounted for data collection. The comparisons between the proposed method and the methods based on individual sensors show that the former achieves much higher accuracies in detecting planetary gearbox faults.

Health condition identification of multi-stage planetary gearboxes using a mRVM-based method

Science.gov (United States)

Lei, Yaguo; Liu, Zongyao; Wu, Xionghui; Li, Naipeng; Chen, Wu; Lin, Jing

2015-08-01

Multi-stage planetary gearboxes are widely applied in aerospace, automotive and heavy industries. Their key components, such as gears and bearings, can easily suffer from damage due to tough working environment. Health condition identification of planetary gearboxes aims to prevent accidents and save costs. This paper proposes a method based on multiclass relevance vector machine (mRVM) to identify health condition of multi-stage planetary gearboxes. In this method, a mRVM algorithm is adopted as a classifier, and two features, i.e. accumulative amplitudes of carrier orders (AACO) and energy ratio based on difference spectra (ERDS), are used as the input of the classifier to classify different health conditions of multi-stage planetary gearboxes. To test the proposed method, seven health conditions of a two-stage planetary gearbox are considered and vibration data is acquired from the planetary gearbox under different motor speeds and loading conditions. The results of three tests based on different data show that the proposed method obtains an improved identification performance and robustness compared with the existing method.

The International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA)

Science.gov (United States)

Stein, Thomas; Gopala Krishna, Barla; Crichton, Daniel J.

2016-07-01

The International Planetary Data Alliance (IPDA) is a close association of partners with the aim of improving the quality of planetary science data and services to the end users of space based instrumentation. The specific mission of the IPDA is to facilitate global access to, and exchange of, high quality scientific data products managed across international boundaries. Ensuring proper capture, accessibility and availability of the data is the task of the individual member space agencies. The IPDA is focused on developing an international standard that allows discovery, query, access, and usage of such data across international planetary data archive systems. While trends in other areas of space science are concentrating on the sharing of science data from diverse standards and collection methods, the IPDA concentrates on promoting governing data standards that drive common methods for collecting and describing planetary science data across the international community. This approach better supports the long term goal of easing data sharing across system and agency boundaries. An initial starting point for developing such a standard will be internationalization of NASA's Planetary Data System's (PDS) PDS4 standard. The IPDA was formed in 2006 with the purpose of adopting standards and developing collaborations across agencies to ensure data is captured in common formats. It has grown to a dozen member agencies represented by a number of different groups through the IPDA Steering Committee. Member agencies include: Armenian Astronomical Society, China National Space Agency (CNSA), European Space Agency (ESA), German Aerospace Center (DLR), Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Italian Space Agency (ASI), Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), National Air and Space Administration (NASA), National Centre for Space Studies (CNES), Space Research Institute (IKI), UAE Space Agency, and UK Space Agency. The IPDA Steering Committee oversees the execution of

THE SEARCH FOR PLANETARY MASS COMPANIONS TO FIELD BROWN DWARFS WITH HST/NICMOS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stumpf, M. B.; Brandner, W.; Joergens, V.; Henning, Th.; Bouy, H.; Koehler, R.; Kasper, M.

2010-01-01

We present the results of a high-resolution spectral differential imaging survey of 12 nearby, relatively young field L dwarfs (≤1 Gyr) carried out with the Hubble Space Telescope/NICMOS to search for planetary mass companions at small physical separations from their host. The survey resolved two brown dwarf binaries: the L dwarf system Kelu-1 AB and the newly discovered L/T transition system 2MASS 031059+164815 AB. For both systems, common proper motion has already been confirmed in follow-up observations which have been published elsewhere. The derived separations of the binaries are smaller than 6 AU and consistent with previous brown dwarf binary statistics. Their mass ratios of q ≥ 0.8 confirm the preference for equal-mass systems similar to a large number of other surveys. Furthermore, we found tentative evidence for a companion to the L4 dwarf 2MASSW 033703-175807, straddling the brown dwarf/planetary mass boundary and revealing an uncommonly low-mass ratio system (q ∼ 0.2) compared to the vast majority of previously found brown dwarf binaries. With a derived minimum mass of 10-15 M Jup a planetary nature of the secondary cannot be ruled out yet. However, it seems more likely to be a very low mass brown dwarf secondary at the border of the spectral T/Y transition regime, primarily due to its similarities to recently found very cool T dwarfs. This would make it one of the closest resolved brown dwarf binaries (0.''087 ± 0.''015, corresponding to 2.52 ± 0.44 AU at a distance of 29 pc) with the coolest (T eff ∼ 600-630 K) and least massive companion to any L or T dwarf.

Teaching, learning, and planetary exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Brown, Robert A.

1992-01-01

The progress accomplished in the first five months of the three-year grant period of Teaching, Learning, and Planetary Exploration is presented. The objectives of this project are to discover new education products and services based on space science, particularly planetary exploration. An Exploration in Education is the umbrella name for the education projects as they are seen by teachers and the interested public. As described in the proposal, our approach consists of: (1) increasing practical understanding of the potential role and capabilities of the research community to contribute to basic education using new discoveries; (2) developing an intellectual framework for these contributions by supplying criteria and templates for the teacher's stories; (3) attracting astronomers, engineers, and technical staff to the project and helping them form productive education partnerships for the future, (4) exploring relevant technologies and networks for authoring and communicating the teacher's stories; (5) enlisting the participation of potential user's of the teacher's stories in defining the products; (6) actually producing and delivering many educationally useful teacher's stories; and (7) reporting the pilot study results with critical evaluation. Technical progress was made by assembling our electronic publishing stations, designing electronic publications based on space science, and developing distribution approaches for electronic products. Progress was made addressing critical issues by developing policies and procedures for securing intellectual property rights and assembling a focus group of teachers to test our ideas and assure the quality of our products. The following useful materials are being produced: the TOPS report; three electronic 'PictureBooks'; one 'ElectronicArticle'; three 'ElectronicReports'; ten 'PrinterPosters'; and the 'FaxForum' with an initial complement of printed materials. We have coordinated with planetary scientists and astronomers

Subsurface Prospecting by Planetary Drones, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — The proposed program innovates subsurface prospecting by planetary drones to seek a solution to the difficulty of robotic prospecting, sample acquisition, and sample...

Get Involved in Planetary Discoveries through New Worlds, New Discoveries

Science.gov (United States)

Shupla, Christine; Shipp, S. S.; Halligan, E.; Dalton, H.; Boonstra, D.; Buxner, S.; SMD Planetary Forum, NASA

2013-01-01

"New Worlds, New Discoveries" is a synthesis of NASA’s 50-year exploration history which provides an integrated picture of our new understanding of our solar system. As NASA spacecraft head to and arrive at key locations in our solar system, "New Worlds, New Discoveries" provides an integrated picture of our new understanding of the solar system to educators and the general public! The site combines the amazing discoveries of past NASA planetary missions with the most recent findings of ongoing missions, and connects them to the related planetary science topics. "New Worlds, New Discoveries," which includes the "Year of the Solar System" and the ongoing celebration of the "50 Years of Exploration," includes 20 topics that share thematic solar system educational resources and activities, tied to the national science standards. This online site and ongoing event offers numerous opportunities for the science community - including researchers and education and public outreach professionals - to raise awareness, build excitement, and make connections with educators, students, and the public about planetary science. Visitors to the site will find valuable hands-on science activities, resources and educational materials, as well as the latest news, to engage audiences in planetary science topics and their related mission discoveries. The topics are tied to the big questions of planetary science: how did the Sun’s family of planets and bodies originate and how have they evolved? How did life begin and evolve on Earth, and has it evolved elsewhere in our solar system? Scientists and educators are encouraged to get involved either directly or by sharing "New Worlds, New Discoveries" and its resources with educators, by conducting presentations and events, sharing their resources and events to add to the site, and adding their own public events to the site’s event calendar! Visit to find quality resources and ideas. Connect with educators, students and the public to

Hayes Receives 2012 Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science: Citation

Science.gov (United States)

Leshin, Laurie A.

2013-10-01

Alexander G. Hayes Jr. received the 2012 Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science at the 2012 AGU Fall Meeting, held 3-7 December in San Francisco, Calif. The award recognizes significant early-career contributions to planetary science.

Planets and planetarians. A history of theories of the origin of planetary systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jaki, S L

1978-01-01

A critical review is presented of theories of the origin of planetary systems. The book deals chronologically with the subject from Greek times to the present. The last of the eight chapters covers the post-war period. Particular attention is paid to theories of the origin of our own planetary system and to the degree of frequency of planetary systems (in particular, the frequency of planets carrying life in some form) in the universe.

The planetary spatial data infrastructure for the OSIRIS-REx mission

Science.gov (United States)

DellaGiustina, D. N.; Selznick, S.; Nolan, M. C.; Enos, H. L.; Lauretta, D. S.

2017-12-01

The primary objective of the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is to return a pristine sample of carbonaceous material from primitive asteroid (101955) Bennu. Understanding the geospatial context of Bennu is critical to choosing a sample-site and also linking the nature of the sample to the global properties of Bennu and the broader asteroid population. We established a planetary spatial data infrastructure (PSDI) support the primary objective of OSIRIS-REx. OSIRIS-REx is unique among planetary missions in that all remote sensing is performed to support the sample return objective. Prior to sampling, OSIRIS-REx will survey Bennu for nearly two years to select and document the most valuable primary and backup sample sites. During this period, the mission will combine coordinated observations from five science instruments into four thematic maps: deliverability, safety, sampleability, and scientific value. The deliverability map assesses the probability that the flight dynamics team can deliver the spacecraft to the desired location. The safety map indicates the probability that physical hazards are present at the sample-site. The sampleability map quantifies the probability that a sample can be successfully collected from the surface. Finally, the scientific value map shows the probability that the collected sample contains organics and volatiles and also places the sample site in a definitive geological context relative to Bennu's history. The OSIRIS-REx Science Processing and Operations Center (SPOC) serves as the operational PSDI for the mission. The SPOC is tasked with intake of all data from the spacecraft and other ground sources and assimilating these data into a single comprehensive system for processing and presentation. The SPOC centralizes all geographic data of Bennu in a relational database and ensures that standardization and provenance are maintained throughout proximity

Planetary Surface-Atmosphere Interactions

Science.gov (United States)

Merrison, J. P.; Bak, E.; Finster, K.; Gunnlaugsson, H. P.; Holstein-Rathlou, C.; Knak Jensen, S.; Nørnberg, P.

2013-09-01

Planetary bodies having an accessible solid surface and significant atmosphere, such as Earth, Mars, Venus, Titan, share common phenomenology. Specifically wind induced transport of surface materials, subsequent erosion, the generation and transport of solid aerosols which leads both to chemical and electrostatic interaction with the atmosphere. How these processes affect the evolution of the atmosphere and surface will be discussed in the context of general planetology and the latest laboratory studies will be presented.

Oral Histories in Meteoritics and Planetary Science - XX: Dale Cruikshank

Science.gov (United States)

Sears, Derek W. G.

2013-04-01

In this interview, Dale Cruikshank (Fig. 1) explains how as an undergraduate at Iowa State University he was a summer student at Yerkes Observatory where he assisted Gerard Kuiper in work on his Photographic Lunar Atlas. Upon completing his degree, Dale went to graduate school at the University of Arizona with Kuiper where he worked on the IR spectroscopy of the lunar surface. After an eventful 1968 trip to Moscow via Prague, during which the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, Dale assumed a postdoc position with Vasili Moroz at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute and more observational IR astronomy. Upon returning to the United States and after a year at Arizona, Dale assumed a position at the University of Hawai'i that he held for 17 years. During this period Dale worked with others on thermal infrared determinations of the albedos of small bodies beyond the asteroid Main Belt, leading to the recognition that low-albedo material is prevalent in the outer solar system that made the first report of complex organic solids on a planetary body (Saturn's satellite Iapetus). After moving to Ames Research Center, where he works currently, he continued this work and became involved in many outer solar system missions. Dale has served the community through his involvement in developing national policies for science-driven planetary exploration, being chair of the DPS 1990-1991 and secretary/treasurer for 1982-1985. He served as president of Commission 16 (Physics of Planets) of the IAU (2001-2003). He received the Kuiper prize in 2006.

Evolution of space drones for planetary exploration: A review

Science.gov (United States)

Hassanalian, M.; Rice, D.; Abdelkefi, A.

2018-02-01

In the past decade, there has been a tendency to design and fabricate drones which can perform planetary exploration. Generally, there are various ways to study space objects, such as the application of telescopes and satellites, launching robots and rovers, and sending astronauts to the targeted solar bodies. However, due to the advantages of drones compared to other approaches in planetary exploration, ample research has been carried out by different space agencies in the world, including NASA to apply drones in other solar bodies. In this review paper, several studies which have been performed on space drones for planetary exploration are consolidated and discussed. Design and fabrication challenges of space drones, existing methods for their flight tests, different methods for deployment and planet entry, and various navigation and control approaches are reviewed and discussed elaborately. Limitations of applying space drones, proposed solutions for future space drones, and recommendations are also presented and discussed.

Virtual Planetary Space Weather Services offered by the Europlanet H2020 Research Infrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

André, N.; Grande, M.; Achilleos, N.; Barthélémy, M.; Bouchemit, M.; Benson, K.; Blelly, P.-L.; Budnik, E.; Caussarieu, S.; Cecconi, B.; Cook, T.; Génot, V.; Guio, P.; Goutenoir, A.; Grison, B.; Hueso, R.; Indurain, M.; Jones, G. H.; Lilensten, J.; Marchaudon, A.; Matthiä, D.; Opitz, A.; Rouillard, A.; Stanislawska, I.; Soucek, J.; Tao, C.; Tomasik, L.; Vaubaillon, J.

2018-01-01

Under Horizon 2020, the Europlanet 2020 Research Infrastructure (EPN2020-RI) will include an entirely new Virtual Access Service, "Planetary Space Weather Services" (PSWS) that will extend the concepts of space weather and space situational awareness to other planets in our Solar System and in particular to spacecraft that voyage through it. PSWS will make twelve new services accessible to the research community, space agencies, and industrial partners planning for space missions. These services will in particular be dedicated to the following key planetary environments: Mars (in support of the NASA MAVEN and European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express and ExoMars missions), comets (building on the outstanding success of the ESA Rosetta mission), and outer planets (in preparation for the ESA JUpiter ICy moon Explorer mission), and one of these services will aim at predicting and detecting planetary events like meteor showers and impacts in the Solar System. This will give the European planetary science community new methods, interfaces, functionalities and/or plugins dedicated to planetary space weather as well as to space situational awareness in the tools and models available within the partner institutes. A variety of tools (in the form of web applications, standalone software, or numerical models in various degrees of implementation) are available for tracing propagation of planetary and/or solar events through the Solar System and modelling the response of the planetary environment (surfaces, atmospheres, ionospheres, and magnetospheres) to those events. But these tools were not originally designed for planetary event prediction and space weather applications. PSWS will provide the additional research and tailoring required to apply them for these purposes. PSWS will be to review, test, improve and adapt methods and tools available within the partner institutes in order to make prototype planetary event and space weather services operational in Europe at the end

A phase angle based diagnostic scheme to planetary gear faults diagnostics under non-stationary operational conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Ke; Wang, Kesheng; Ni, Qing; Zuo, Ming J.; Wei, Dongdong

2017-11-01

Planetary gearbox is a critical component for rotating machinery. It is widely used in wind turbines, aerospace and transmission systems in heavy industry. Thus, it is important to monitor planetary gearboxes, especially for fault diagnostics, during its operational conditions. However, in practice, operational conditions of planetary gearbox are often characterized by variations of rotational speeds and loads, which may bring difficulties for fault diagnosis through the measured vibrations. In this paper, phase angle data extracted from measured planetary gearbox vibrations is used for fault detection under non-stationary operational conditions. Together with sample entropy, fault diagnosis on planetary gearbox is implemented. The proposed scheme is explained and demonstrated in both simulation and experimental studies. The scheme proves to be effective and features advantages on fault diagnosis of planetary gearboxes under non-stationary operational conditions.

Generic and scientific constraints involving geoethics and geoeducation in planetary geosciences

Science.gov (United States)

Martínez-Frías, Jesús

2013-04-01

Geoscience education is a key factor in the academic, scientific and professional progress of any modern society. Geoethics is an interdisciplinary field, which involves Earth and Planetary Sciences as well as applied ethics, regarding the study of the abiotic world. These coss-cutting interactions linking scientific, societal and cultural aspects, consider our planet, in its modern approach, as a system and as a model. This new perspective is extremely important in the context of geoducation in planetary geosciences. In addition, Earth, our home planet, is the only planet in our solar system known to harbor life. This also makes it crucial to develop any scientific strategy and methodological technique (e.g. Raman spectroscopy) of searching for extraterrestrial life. In this context, it has been recently proposed [1-3] that the incorporation of the geoethical and geodiversity issues in planetary geology and astrobiology studies would enrich their methodological and conceptual character (mainly but not only in relation to planetary protection). Modern geoscience education must take into account that, in order to understand the origin and evolution of our planet, we need to be aware that the Earth is open to space, and that the study of meteorites, asteroids, the Moon and Mars is also essential for this purpose (Earth analogs are also unique sites to define planetary guidelines). Generic and scientific constraints involving geoethics and geoeducation should be incorporated into the teaching of all fundamental knowledge and skills for students and teachers. References: [1] Martinez-Frias, J. et al. (2009) 9th European Workshop on Astrobiology, EANA 09, 12-14 October 2009, Brussels, Belgiam. [2] Martinez-Frias, J., et al. (2010) 38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly. Protecting the Lunar and Martian Environments for Scientific Research, Bremen, Germany, 18-25 July. [3] Walsh et al. (2012) 43rd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 1910.pdf

Planets and planetarians. A history of theories of the origin of planetary systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaki, S.L.

1978-01-01

A critical review is presented of theories of the origin of planetary systems. The book deals chronologically with the subject from Greek times to the present. The last of the eight chapters covers the post-war period. Particular attention is paid to theories of the origin of our own planetary system and to the degree of frequency of planetary systems (in particular, the frequency of planets carrying life in some form) in the universe. (U.K.)

78 FR 64253 - NASA Advisory Council; Science Committee; Planetary Protection Subcommittee; Meeting

Science.gov (United States)

2013-10-28

...; Issues and Status --Planetary Protection for Cached Mars Samples --Planetary Science Update --Mars... later than the close of business November 5, 2013. Foreign Nationals must provide following information: full name, gender, date/place of birth, citizenship, home address, visa information (number, type...

Project Physics Tests 2, Motion in the Heavens.

Science.gov (United States)

Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA. Harvard Project Physics.

Test items relating to Project Physics Unit 2 are presented in this booklet. Included are 70 multiple-choice and 22 problem-and-essay questions. Concepts of motion in the heavens are examined for planetary motions, heliocentric theory, forces exerted on the planets, Kepler's laws, gravitational force, Galileo's work, satellite orbits, Jupiter's…

Automated Planning and Scheduling for Planetary Rover Distributed Operations

Science.gov (United States)

Backes, Paul G.; Rabideau, Gregg; Tso, Kam S.; Chien, Steve

1999-01-01

Automated planning and Scheduling, including automated path planning, has been integrated with an Internet-based distributed operations system for planetary rover operations. The resulting prototype system enables faster generation of valid rover command sequences by a distributed planetary rover operations team. The Web Interface for Telescience (WITS) provides Internet-based distributed collaboration, the Automated Scheduling and Planning Environment (ASPEN) provides automated planning and scheduling, and an automated path planner provided path planning. The system was demonstrated on the Rocky 7 research rover at JPL.

Bringing Terramechanics to bear on Planetary Rover Design

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, L.

2007-08-01

Thus far, planetary rovers have been successfully operated on the Earth's moon and on Mars. In particular, the two NASA Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) ,Spirit' and ,Opportunity' are still in sustained daily operations at two sites on Mars more than 3 years after landing there. Currently, several new planetary rover missions are in development targeting Mars (the US Mars Science Lab vehicle for launch in 2009 and ESA's ExoMars rover for launch in 2013), with lunar rover missions under study by China and Japan for launches around 2012. Moreover, the US Constellation program is preparing pre-development of lunar rovers for initially unmanned and, subsequently, human missions to the Moon with a corresponding team dedicated to mobility system development having been set up at the NASA Glenn Research Center. Given this dynamic environment, it was found timely to establish an expert group on off-the-road mobility as relevant for robotic vehicles that would involve individuals representing the various on-going efforts on the different continents. This was realized through the International Society of Terrain-Vehicle Systems (ISTVS), a research organisation devoted to terramechanics and to the ,science' of off-the-road vehicle development which as a result is just now establishing a Technical Group on Terrestrial and Planetary Rovers. Members represent space-related as well as military research institutes and universities from the US, Germany, Italy, and Japan. The group's charter for 2007 is to define its objectives, functions, organizational structure and recommended research objectives to support planetary rover design and development. Expected areas of activity of the ISTVS-sponsored group include: the problem of terrain specification for planetary rovers; identification of limitations in modelling of rover mobility; a survey of existing rover mobility testbeds; the consolidation of mobility predictive models and their state of validation; sensing and real

PSUP: A Planetary SUrface Portal

Science.gov (United States)

Poulet, F.; Quantin-Nataf, C.; Ballans, H.; Dassas, K.; Audouard, J.; Carter, J.; Gondet, B.; Lozac'h, L.; Malapert, J.-C.; Marmo, C.; Riu, L.; Séjourné, A.

2018-01-01

The large size and complexity of planetary data acquired by spacecraft during the last two decades create a demand within the planetary community for access to the archives of raw and high level data and for the tools necessary to analyze these data. Among the different targets of the Solar System, Mars is unique as the combined datasets from the Viking, Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Express and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter missions provide a tremendous wealth of information that can be used to study the surface of Mars. The number and the size of the datasets require an information system to process, manage and distribute data. The Observatories of Paris Sud (OSUPS) and Lyon (OSUL) have developed a portal, called PSUP (Planetary SUrface Portal), for providing users with efficient and easy access to data products dedicated to the Martian surface. The objectives of the portal are: 1) to allow processing and downloading of data via a specific application called MarsSI (Martian surface data processing Information System); 2) to provide the visualization and merging of high level (image, spectral, and topographic) products and catalogs via a web-based user interface (MarsVisu), and 3) to distribute some of these specific high level data with an emphasis on products issued by the science teams of OSUPS and OSUL. As the MarsSI service is extensively described in a companion paper (Quantin-Nataf et al., companion paper, submitted to this special issue), the present paper focus on the general architecture and the functionalities of the web-based user interface MarsVisu. This service provides access to many data products for Mars: albedo, mineral and thermal inertia global maps from spectrometers; mosaics from imagers; image footprints and rasters from the MarsSI tool; high level specific products (defined as catalogs or vectors). MarsVisu can be used to quickly assess the visualized processed data and maps as well as identify areas that have not been mapped yet

Planetary nebulae and Wolf-Rayet stars in the galactic-centre field

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Allen, D A [Anglo-Australian Observatory, Epping (Australia)

1979-06-01

A UK Schmidt objective-prism plate of the Galactic-centre field has been examined. Of the 74 objects in the field which have been catalogued as planetary nebulae, only half appear correctly classified; the others include Be stars, symbiotic stars, and stars without emission lines. A further 19 planetary nebulae and two Wolf-Rayet stars have been discovered.

Implementation of cartographic symbols for planetary mapping in geographic information systems

Science.gov (United States)

Nass, A.; van Gasselt, S.; Jaumann, R.; Asche, H.

2011-09-01

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. Camera instruments carried along on these missions image surfaces in different wavelength ranges and under different viewing angles, permitting additional data to be derived, such as spectral data or digital terrain models. Such data enable researchers to explore and investigate the development of planetary surfaces by analyzing and interpreting the inventory of surface units and structures. Results of such work are commonly abstracted and represented in thematic, mostly geological and geomorphological, maps. In order to facilitate efficient collaboration among different planetary research disciplines, mapping results need to be prepared, described, managed, archived, and visualized in a uniform way. These tasks have been increasingly carried out by means of computer-based geographic information systems (GIS or GI systems) which have come to be widely employed in the field of planetary research since the last two decades. In this paper we focus on the simplification of mapping processes, putting specific emphasis on a cartographically correct visualization of planetary mapping data using GIS-based environments. We present and discuss the implementation of a set of standardized cartographic symbols for planetary mapping based on the Digital Cartographic Standard for Geologic Map Symbolization as prepared by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for the Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC). Furthermore, we discuss various options to integrate this symbol catalog into generic GI systems, and more specifically into the Environmental Systems Research Institute's (ESRI) ArcGIS environment, and focus on requirements for

The European standard on planetary protection requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

Debus, André

2006-01-01

Since the beginning of solar system exploration, numerous spacecrafts have been sent towards others worlds, and one of the main goals of such missions is the search for extraterrestrial forms of life. It is known that, under certain conditions, some terrestrial entities are able to survive during cruises in space and that they may contaminate other planets (forward contamination). At another level, possible extraterrestrial life forms are unknown and their ability to contaminate the Earth's biosphere (back contamination) in the frame of sample return missions cannot be excluded. Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty (London/Washington, January 27, 1967) requires the preservation of planets and the Earth from contamination. All nations taking part in this Treaty must prevent forward and back contamination during missions exploring our solar system. Consequently, the United Nations (UN-COPUOS) has delegated COSPAR (Committee of Space Research) to take charge of planetary protection and, at present, all space-faring nations must comply with COSPAR policy and consequently with COSPAR planetary protection recommendations. Starting from these recommendations and the "CNES Planetary Protection Standard" document, a working group has been set up in the framework of the "European Cooperation for Space Standardization" (ECSS) to establish the main specifications for preventing cross-contamination between target bodies within the solar system and the Earth-moon system.

A Planetary Park system for the Moon and beyond

Science.gov (United States)

Cockell, Charles; Horneck, Gerda

Deutschland International space exploration programs foresee the establishment of human settlements on the Moon and on Mars within the next decades, following a series of robotic precursor missions. These increasing robotic visits and eventual human exploration and settlements may have an environmental impact on scientifically important sites and sites of natural beauty in the form of contamination with microorganisms and spacecraft parts, or even pollution as a consequence of in situ resource use. This concern has already been reflected in the Moon Treaty, "The Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies" of the United Nations, which follows the Outer Space Treaty of the UN. However, so far, the Moon Treaty has not been ratified by any nation which engages in human space programs or has plans to do so. Planetary protection guidelines as formulated by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) are based on the Outer Space Treaty and follow the objectives: (i) to prevent contamination by terrestrial microorganisms if this might jeopardize scientific investi-gations of possible extraterrestrial life forms, and (ii) to protect the Earth from the potential hazard posed by extraterrestrial material brought back to the Earth. As a consequence, they group exploratory missions according to the type of mission and target body in five different categories, requesting specific means of cleaning and sterilization. However, the protection of extraterrestrial environments might also encompass ethical and other non-instrumental reasons. In order to allow intense scientific research and exploitation, and on the other hand to preserve regions of the Moon for research and use by future generations, we proposed the introduction of a planetary (or lunar) park system, which would protect areas of scientific, historic and intrinsic value under a common scheme. A similar placePlaceNamePlanetary PlaceTypePark system could be established on Mars well

Women in Planetary Science: Career Resources and e-Mentoring on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest

Science.gov (United States)

Niebur, S. M.; Singer, K.; Gardner-Vandy, K.

2012-08-01

Fifty-one interviews with women in planetary science are now available as an e-mentoring and teaching resource on WomeninPlanetaryScience.com. Each scientist was nominated and interviewed by a fellow member of the planetary science community, and each gladly shared her advice for advancement in the field. Women in Planetary Science was founded in 2008 to connect communities of current and prospective scientists, to promote proposal and award opportunities, and to stimulate discussion in the planetary science community at large. Regular articles, or posts, by nearly a dozen collaborators highlight a range of current issues for women in this field. These articles are promoted by collaborators on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ and shared again by the collaborators' contacts, reaching a significantly wider audience. The group's latest project, on Pinterest, is a crowd-sourced photo gallery of more than 350 inspiring women in planetary science; each photo links to the scientist's CV. The interviews, the essays, and the photo gallery are available online as resources for prospective scientists, planetary scientists, parents, and educators.

The effect of roll with passive segment on the planetary rolling process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qing-Ling Zeng

2015-03-01

Full Text Available In three-roll planetary rolling process, there is secondary torsion phenomenon that may lead to rolling instability. This article proposed a new idea to alleviate the secondary torsion phenomenon by dividing the secondary torsion segment out of the roll as an independent and passive one. To study the performance of the roll with passive segment, the three-dimensional finite element models of planetary rolling process using actual roll or new roll with passive segment involving elastic–plastic and thermal–mechanical coupling were established by the software ABAQUS/Explicit, and a series of analysis had been done successfully. The rolling temperature and rolling force of planetary mill were in good agreement with the measured results, which indicated that the finite element method would supply important reference merit for three-dimensional thermo-mechanical simulation of the three-roll planetary rolling process. Comparing the simulation results of the two models, the results indicated that the change in the roll structure had just a little influence on the metal deformation, temperature, and rolling force, but it lessened the secondary torsion deformation effectively and improved the outside roundness of the rolled tube slightly. The research provided a new idea for the roll design of three-roll planetary mill (PSW.

Infrared and Raman spectroscopy on synthetic glasses as analogues of planetary surfaces.

Science.gov (United States)

Weber, Iris; Morlok, Andreas; Klemme, Stephan; Dittmer, Isabelle; Stojic, Aleksandra N.; Hiesinger, Harald; Sohn, Martin; Helbert, Jörn

2015-04-01

One of the fundamental aims of space mission is to understand the physical, chemical, and geologic processes and conditions of planetary formation and evolution. For this purpose, it is important to investigate analog material to correctly interpret the returned spacecraft data, including the spectral information from remote planetary surfaces. For example, mid-infrared spectroscopy provides detailed information on the mineralogical compositions of planetary surfaces via remote sensing. Data is affected by numerous factors such as grain size, illumination geometry, space weathering, and temperature. These features need to be systematically investigated on analog material in terrestrial laboratories in order to understand the mineralogy/composition of a planetary surface. In addition, Raman spectroscopy allows non-destructive analyses of planetary surfaces in the case of a landing mission. Our work at the IRIS (Infrared spectroscopy for Interplanetary Studies) laboratory at the Institut für Planetologie produces spectra for a database of the ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission to Mercury. Onboard is a mid-infrared spectrometer (MERTIS-Mercury Radiometer and Thermal Infrared Spectrometer). This unique instrument allows us to map spectral features in the 7-14 µm range, with a spatial resolution of ~500 m [1-5]. Comparably, using our Raman spectrometer, we are continuously contributing to the Raman database for upcoming mission, e.g., the Raman Laser Spectrometer (RLS) onboard of ExoMars [6]. Material on the surface of Mercury and the other terrestrial bodies was exposed to heavy impact cratering [4]. Depending on the P/T conditions during the impact, minerals on planetary surfaces can react with the formation of glassy material. Thus, understanding the effects of impact shock and heat on the mineral structure and the resulting corresponding change in the spectral properties is of high interest for the MERTIS project. Here, we present spectral information on the first glass

NASA Lunar and Planetary Mapping and Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Day, B. H.; Law, E.

2016-12-01

NASA's Lunar and Planetary Mapping and Modeling Portals provide web-based suites of interactive visualization and analysis tools to enable mission planners, planetary scientists, students, and the general public to access mapped lunar data products from past and current missions for the Moon, Mars, and Vesta. New portals for additional planetary bodies are being planned. This presentation will recap significant enhancements to these toolsets during the past year and look forward to the results of the exciting work currently being undertaken. Additional data products and tools continue to be added to the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Portal (LMMP). These include both generalized products as well as polar data products specifically targeting potential sites for the Resource Prospector mission. Current development work on LMMP also includes facilitating mission planning and data management for lunar CubeSat missions, and working with the NASA Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office's Lunar Apollo Sample database in order to help better visualize the geographic contexts from which samples were retrieved. A new user interface provides, among other improvements, significantly enhanced 3D visualizations and navigation. Mars Trek, the project's Mars portal, has now been assigned by NASA's Planetary Science Division to support site selection and analysis for the Mars 2020 Rover mission as well as for the Mars Human Landing Exploration Zone Sites. This effort is concentrating on enhancing Mars Trek with data products and analysis tools specifically requested by the proposing teams for the various sites. Also being given very high priority by NASA Headquarters is Mars Trek's use as a means to directly involve the public in these upcoming missions, letting them explore the areas the agency is focusing upon, understand what makes these sites so fascinating, follow the selection process, and get caught up in the excitement of exploring Mars. The portals also serve as

Planetary tides during the Maunder sunspot minimum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smythe, C.M.; Eddy, J.A.

1977-01-01

Sun-centered planetary conjunctions and tidal potentials are here constructed for the AD1645 to 1715 period of sunspot absence, referred to as the 'Maunder Minimum'. These are found to be effectively indistinguishable from patterns of conjunctions and power spectra of tidal potential in the present era of a well established 11 year sunspot cycle. This places a new and difficult restraint on any tidal theory of sunspot formation. Problems arise in any direct gravitational theory due to the apparently insufficient forces and tidal heights involved. Proponents of the tidal hypothesis usually revert to trigger mechanisms, which are difficult to criticise or test by observation. Any tidal theory rests on the evidence of continued sunspot periodicity and the substantiation of a prolonged period of solar anomaly in the historical past. The 'Maunder Minimum' was the most drastic change in the behaviour of solar activity in the last 300 years; sunspots virtually disappeared for a 70 year period and the 11 year cycle was probably absent. During that time, however, the nine planets were all in their orbits, and planetary conjunctions and tidal potentials were indistinguishable from those of the present era, in which the 11 year cycle is well established. This provides good evidence against the tidal theory. The pattern of planetary tidal forces during the Maunder Minimum was reconstructed to investigate the possibility that the multiple planet forces somehow fortuitously cancelled at the time, that is that the positions of the slower moving planets in the 17th and early 18th centuries were such that conjunctions and tidal potentials were at the time reduced in number and force. There was no striking dissimilarity between the time of the Maunder Minimum and any period investigated. The failure of planetary conjunction patterns to reflect the drastic drop in sunspots during the Maunder Minimum casts doubt on the tidal theory of solar activity, but a more quantitative test

Numerical models of planetary dynamos

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Glatzmaier, G.A.; Roberts, P.H.

1992-01-01

We describe a nonlinear, axisymmetric, spherical-shell model of planetary dynamos. This intermediate-type dynamo model requires a prescribed helicity field (the alpha effect) and a prescribed buoyancy force or thermal wind (the omega effect) and solves for the axisymmetric time-dependent magnetic and velocity fields. Three very different time dependent solutions are obtained from different prescribed sets of alpha and omega fields

Global fully kinetic models of planetary magnetospheres with iPic3D

Science.gov (United States)

Gonzalez, D.; Sanna, L.; Amaya, J.; Zitz, A.; Lembege, B.; Markidis, S.; Schriver, D.; Walker, R. J.; Berchem, J.; Peng, I. B.; Travnicek, P. M.; Lapenta, G.

2016-12-01

We report on the latest developments of our approach to model planetary magnetospheres, mini magnetospheres and the Earth's magnetosphere with the fully kinetic, electromagnetic particle in cell code iPic3D. The code treats electrons and multiple species of ions as full kinetic particles. We review: 1) Why a fully kinetic model and in particular why kinetic electrons are needed for capturing some of the most important aspects of the physics processes of planetary magnetospheres. 2) Why the energy conserving implicit method (ECIM) in its newest implementation [1] is the right approach to reach this goal. We consider the different electron scales and study how the new IECIM can be tuned to resolve only the electron scales of interest while averaging over the unresolved scales preserving their contribution to the evolution. 3) How with modern computing planetary magnetospheres, mini magnetosphere and eventually Earth's magnetosphere can be modeled with fully kinetic electrons. The path from petascale to exascale for iPiC3D is outlined based on the DEEP-ER project [2], using dynamic allocation of different processor architectures (Xeon and Xeon Phi) and innovative I/O technologies.Specifically results from models of Mercury are presented and compared with MESSENGER observations and with previous hybrid (fluid electrons and kinetic ions) simulations. The plasma convection around the planets includes the development of hydrodynamic instabilities at the flanks, the presence of the collisionless shocks, the magnetosheath, the magnetopause, reconnection zones, the formation of the plasma sheet and the magnetotail, and the variation of ion/electron plasma flows when crossing these frontiers. Given the full kinetic nature of our approach we focus on detailed particle dynamics and distribution at locations that can be used for comparison with satellite data. [1] Lapenta, G. (2016). Exactly Energy Conserving Implicit Moment Particle in Cell Formulation. arXiv preprint ar

Using Vulcan to Recreate Planetary Cores

CERN Document Server

Collins, G W; Benedetti, L R; Benuzzi-Mounaix, A; Cauble, R; Celliers, P M; Danson, C; Da Silva, L B; Gessner, H; Henry, E; Hicks, D G; Huser, G; Jeanloz, R; Koening, M; Lee, K M; Mackinnon, A J; Moon, S J; Neely, D; Notley, M; Pasley, J; Willi, O

2001-01-01

An accurate equation of state (EOS) for planetary constituents at extreme conditions is the key to any credible model of planets or low mass stars. However, experimental validation has been carried out on at high pressure (>few Mbar), and then only on the principal Hugoniot. For planetary and stellar interiors, compression occurs from gravitational force so that material states follow a line of isentropic compression (ignoring phase separation) to ultra-high densities. An example of the predicted states for water along the isentrope for Neptune is shown in a figure. The cutaway figure on the left is from Hubbard, and the phase diagram on the right is from Cavazzoni et al. Clearly these states lie at quite a bit lower temperature and higher density than single shock Hugoniot states but they are at higher temperature than can be achieved with accurate diamond anvil experiments. At extreme densities, material states are predicted to have quite unearthly properties such as high temperature superconductivity and l...

Lunar and Planetary Webcam User's Guide

CERN Document Server

Mobberley, Martin

2006-01-01

Inexpensive webcams are revolutionizing imaging in amateur astronomy by providing an affordable alternative to cooled-chip astronomical CCD cameras, for photographing the brighter astronomical objects. Webcams – costing only a few tens of dollars – are capable of more advanced high resolution work than "normal" digital cameras because their rapid image download speed can freeze fine planetary details, even through the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Also, their simple construction makes it easy to remove the lens, allowing them to be used at high power at the projected focus of an astronomical telescope. Webcams also connect direct to a PC, so that software can be used to "stack" multiple images, providing a stunning increase in image quality. In the Lunar and Planetary Webcam User’s Guide Martin Mobberley de-mystifies the jargon of webcams and computer processing, and provides detailed hints and tips for imaging the Sun, Moon and planets with a webcam. He looks at each observing target separately, descri...

The Making of a Pre-Planetary Nebula

Science.gov (United States)

Kohler, Susanna

2017-07-01

The gas expelled by dying stars gets twisted into intricate shapes and patterns as nebulae form. Now a team of researchers might have some answers about how this happens.Whats a Pre-Planetary Nebula?This H-R diagram for the globular cluster M5 shows where AGB stars lie: they are represented by blue markers here. The AGB is one of the final stages in a low- to intermediate-mass stars lifetime. [Lithopsian]When a low- to intermediate-mass star approaches the end of its lifetime, it moves onto the Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) in the Herzsprung-Russell diagram. As the star exhausts its fuel here, it shrugs off its outer layers. These layers of gas then encase the stars core, which is not yet hot enough to ionize the gas and cause it to glow.Instead, during this time the gas is relatively cool and dark, faintly reflecting light from the star and emitting only very dim infrared emission of its own. At this stage, the gas represents a pre-planetary nebula. Only later when the stellar core contracts enough to heat up and emit ionizing radiation does the nebula begin to properly glow, at which point it qualifies as a full planetary nebula.Images of OH231 in optical light (top) and 12CO (bottom) taken from the literature. [See Balick et al. 2017 for full credit]Unexpected ShapesPre-planetary nebulae are a very short-lived evolutionary stage, so weve observed only a few hundred of them which has left many unanswered questions about these objects.One particular mystery is that of their shapes: if these nebulae are formed by stars expelling their outer layers, we would naively expect them to be simple spherical shells and yet we observe pre-planetary nebulae to have intricate shapes and patterns. How does the star create these asymmetric shapes? A team of scientists led by Bruce Balick (University of Washington, Seattle) has now used simulations to address this question.Injecting MassBalick and collaborators use 3D hydrodynamic simulations to model one particular pre-planetary

Is Planetary-Scale High Tech Civilization Climatically Sustainable?: The Geophysics v Economics Paradigm War

Science.gov (United States)

Hoffert, M.

2012-12-01

Climate/energy policy is gridlocked between (1) a geophysics perspective revealing long-term instabilities from continued energy consumption growth, of which the fossil fuel greenhouse an early symptom; and (2) short-term, fossil-fuel energized-rapid-economic-growth-driven policies likely adaptive for hunter-gatherers competing for scarce food, but climatically fatal to planetary-scale economies dependent on agriculture and "energy slaves." Incorporating social science into climate/energy policy formulation has focused on integrated assessment models (IAMs) exploring scenarios (parallel universes making different social choices) depicting the evolution of GDP, energy consumed, the energy technology mixture, land use, greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions, and radiative forcing). Representative concentration pathways (RCP) scenarios developed for the IPCC AR5 report imply 5-10 degree C warming from fossil fuel burning unless unprecedentedly fast decarbonization rates ~ 7 %/yr are implemented from 2020 to 2100. A massive transition to carbon neutrality by midcentury is needed to keep warming use continues growing at 2%/year, fossil-fuel-greenhouse level warming would be generated by heat rejecting in only 200-300 years underscoring that sustainability implies a steady state planetary economy (FIG.2). Evolutionary psychology and neuroeconomics are emergent disciplines that may illuminate the physical v social science paradigm conflict threatening human survivability.

Multiscale regime shifts and planetary boundaries

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hughes, T.P.; Carpenter, S.; Rockstrom, J.; Scheffer, M.; Walker, B.

2013-01-01

Life on Earth has repeatedly displayed abrupt and massive changes in the past, and there is no reason to expect that comparable planetary-scale regime shifts will not continue in the future. Different lines of evidence indicate that regime shifts occur when the climate or biosphere transgresses a

Bi-Abundance Ionisation Structure of the Wolf-Rayet Planetary Nebula PB 8

Science.gov (United States)

Danehkar, A.

2018-01-01

The planetary nebula PB 8 around a [WN/WC]-hybrid central star is one of planetary nebulae with moderate abundance discrepancy factors (ADFs 2-3), which could be an indication of a tiny fraction of metal-rich inclusions embedded in the nebula (bi-abundance). In this work, we have constructed photoionisation models to reproduce the optical and infrared observations of the planetary nebula PB 8 using a non-LTE stellar model atmosphere ionising source. A chemically homogeneous model initially used cannot predict the optical recombination lines. However, a bi-abundance model provides a better fit to most of the observed optical recombination lines from N and O ions. The metal-rich inclusions in the bi-abundance model occupy 5.6% of the total volume of the nebula, and are roughly 1.7 times cooler and denser than the mean values of the surrounding nebula. The N/H and O/H abundance ratios in the metal-rich inclusions are 1.0 and 1.7 dex larger than the diffuse warm nebula, respectively. To reproduce the Spitzer spectral energy distribution of PB 8, dust grains with a dust-to-gas ratio of 0.01 (by mass) were also included. It is found that the presence of metal-rich inclusions can explain the heavy element optical recombination lines, while a dual-dust chemistry with different grain species and discrete grain sizes likely produces the infrared continuum of this planetary nebula. This study demonstrates that the bi-abundance hypothesis, which was examined in a few planetary nebulae with large abundance discrepancies (ADFs > 10), could also be applied to those typical planetary nebulae with moderate abundance discrepancies.

Packaging printed circuit boards: A production application of interactive graphics

Science.gov (United States)

Perrill, W. A.

1975-01-01

The structure and use of an Interactive Graphics Packaging Program (IGPP), conceived to apply computer graphics to the design of packaging electronic circuits onto printed circuit boards (PCB), were described. The intent was to combine the data storage and manipulative power of the computer with the imaginative, intuitive power of a human designer. The hardware includes a CDC 6400 computer and two CDC 777 terminals with CRT screens, light pens, and keyboards. The program is written in FORTRAN 4 extended with the exception of a few functions coded in COMPASS (assembly language). The IGPP performs four major functions for the designer: (1) data input and display, (2) component placement (automatic or manual), (3) conductor path routing (automatic or manual), and (4) data output. The most complex PCB packaged to date measured 16.5 cm by 19 cm and contained 380 components, two layers of ground planes and four layers of conductors mixed with ground planes.

Planning for planetary protection : challenges beyond Mars

Science.gov (United States)

Belz, Andrea P.; Cutts, James A.

2006-01-01

This document summarizes the technical challenges to planetary protection for these targets of interest and outlines some of the considerations, particularly at the system level, in designing an appropriate technology investment strategy for targets beyond Mars.

Distribution of mass in the planetary system and solar nebulae

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weidenschilling, S J [Carnegie Institution of Washington, D.C. (USA). Dept. of Terrestrial Magnetism

1977-09-01

A model 'solar nebula' is constructed by adding the solar complement of light elements to each planet, using recent models of planetary compositions. Uncertainties in this approach are estimated. The computed surface density varies approximately as rsup(-3/2). Mercury, Mars and the asteroid belt are anomalously low in mass, but processes exist which would preferentially remove matter from these regions. Planetary masses and compositions are generally consistent with a monotonic density distribution in the primordial solar nebula.

Planetary interchange of bioactive material: probability factors and implications.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, B C

2001-01-01

It is now well-accepted that both lunar and martian materials are represented in the meteorite collections. Early suggestions that viable organisms might survive natural transport between planets have not yet been thoroughly examined. The concept of Planetary Interchange of Bioactive Material (PIBM) is potentially relevant to the conditions under which life originated. PIBM has been also invoked to infer that the potential danger to Earth from martian materials is non-existent, an inference with, however, many pitfalls. Numerous impediments to efficient transfer of viable organisms exist. In this work, the lethality of space radiation during long transients and the biasing of launched objects toward materials unlikely to host abundant organisms are examined and shown to reduce the likelihood of successful transfer by orders of magnitude. It is also shown that martian meteorites studied to date assuredly have been subjected to sterilizing levels of ionizing radiation in space. PIBM considerations apply to both the solar system locale(s) of the origin of life and to the applicability of planetary protection protocols to preserve the biospheres of planetary bodies, including our own.

From red giant to planetary nebula - Dust, asymmetry, and polarization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, J.J.; Jones, T.J.

1991-01-01

The polarization characteristics of stars in the stages of evolution from red giant to planetary nebula are investigated. Polarization is found to be a characteristic of the majority of these stars. The maximum observed polarization increases with age as the star evolves up the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) to the protoplanetary nebula phase, where the polarization reaches a maximum. The polarization then decreases as the star further evolves into a planetary nebula. These results indicate that aspherical mass loss is likely to be a continual feature of the late stages of stellar evolution, maintaining a clear continuity throughout the life of a star from the moment it first develops a measurable dust shell. The aspherical morphology seen in planetary nebulae has its origin in an intrinsic property of the star that is present at least as early as its arrival at the base of the AGB. 77 refs

THE XO PLANETARY SURVEY PROJECT: ASTROPHYSICAL FALSE POSITIVES

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Poleski, Radosaw; McCullough, Peter R.; Valenti, Jeff A.; Burke, Christopher J.; Machalek, Pavel; Janes, Kenneth

2010-01-01

Searches for planetary transits find many astrophysical false positives as a by-product. There are four main types analyzed in the literature: a grazing-incidence eclipsing binary (EB) star, an EB star with a small radius companion star, a blend of one or more stars with an unrelated EB star, and a physical triple star system. We present a list of 69 astrophysical false positives that had been identified as candidates of transiting planets of the on-going XO survey. This list may be useful in order to avoid redundant observation and characterization of these particular candidates that have been independently identified by other wide-field searches for transiting planets. The list may be useful for those modeling the yield of the XO survey and surveys similar to it. Subsequent observations of some of the listed stars may improve mass-radius relations, especially for low-mass stars. From the candidates exhibiting eclipses, we report three new spectroscopic double-line binaries and give mass function estimations for 15 single-line spectroscopic binaries.

G25.5 + 0.2: a very young supernova remnant or a galactic planetary nebula?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

White, R.L.; Becker, R.H.

1990-01-01

G25.5 + 0.2, a radio source suggested by previous authors to be a very young galactic supernova remnant, is more likely to be a planetary nebula. Its IRAS colours and fluxes and its radio spectrum and morphology are all consistent with the properties of planetary nebulae; its radio flux and distance imply a large mass of ionized gas, which is expected from a Type I planetary nebula lying in the galactic plane. We suggest some definitive observations which should be able to determine whether this interesting object is a planetary nebula or a supernova remnant. (author)

The mysterious age invariance of the planetary nebula luminosity function bright cut-off

Science.gov (United States)

Gesicki, K.; Zijlstra, A. A.; Miller Bertolami, M. M.

2018-05-01

Planetary nebulae mark the end of the active life of 90% of all stars. They trace the transition from a red giant to a degenerate white dwarf. Stellar models1,2 predicted that only stars above approximately twice the solar mass could form a bright nebula. But the ubiquitous presence of bright planetary nebulae in old stellar populations, such as elliptical galaxies, contradicts this: such high-mass stars are not present in old systems. The planetary nebula luminosity function, and especially its bright cut-off, is almost invariant between young spiral galaxies, with high-mass stars, and old elliptical galaxies, with only low-mass stars. Here, we show that new evolutionary tracks of low-mass stars are capable of explaining in a simple manner this decades-old mystery. The agreement between the observed luminosity function and computed stellar evolution validates the latest theoretical modelling. With these models, the planetary nebula luminosity function provides a powerful diagnostic to derive star formation histories of intermediate-age stars. The new models predict that the Sun at the end of its life will also form a planetary nebula, but it will be faint.

Robotic Tool Changer for Planetary Exploration, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Future planetary exploration missions will require compact, lightweight robotic manipulators for handling a variety of tools & instruments without increasing the...

Semiotics Of Shape Of Block Notation As Icon Of Planetary Orbit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ketut Sumerjana

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Block notation has a specific shape; however, its existence and the function of its shape are not recognized and are made to be intangible by its function as a symbol of tapping sound. In general, the basic shape of the block notation looks like an ellipse and is similar to the planetary orbit. Therefore, this present study focuses on the ellipse-shaped block notation as the icon of the planetary orbit. The phenomenological qualitative method was employed to interpret the meaning of the basic shape of the block notation as the icon of planetary orbit. The data were collected through guided interview and library research. The data were analyzed using the semiotic process, meaning that in the first phase the text was analyzed based on the shape structure and in the second phase the text was heuristically analyzed. The result of the study shows that the ellipse-shaped block notation is the planetary orbit whose function changes from the manifest function into the latent one, resulting from the function as the tapping sound value. Keywords: form, notation, icon, orbit, planet

Spectroscopic Investigations of High-Power Laser Sparks in Gas Mixtures Containing Methane: A Laboratory Model of Energetic Events in Strongly Reduced Planetary Atmospheres

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Civiš, Svatopluk; Civiš, Martin; Rašín, R.; Kamas, Michal; Dryahina, Kseniya; Španěl, Patrik; Juha, Libor; Ferus, Martin

2009-01-01

Roč. 39, 3-4 (2009), s. 217-217 ISSN 0169-6149 R&D Projects: GA MŠk LC510; GA MŠk(CZ) LC528; GA ČR GA203/06/1278 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z40400503; CEZ:AV0Z10100523 Keywords : planetary atmosphere * lasers * spectroscopy Subject RIV: CF - Physical ; Theoretical Chemistry Impact factor: 2.053, year: 2009

An ultrasonic corer for planetary rock sample retrieval

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Harkness, P; Cardoni, A; Lucas, M

2009-01-01

Several recent and planned space projects have been focussed on surface rovers for planetary missions, such as the U.S. Mars Exploration Rovers and the European ExoMars. The main functions of similar extraterrestrial vehicles in the future will be moving across planetary surfaces and retrieving rock samples. This paper presents a novel ultrasonic rock sampling tool tuned in a longitudinal-torsional mode along with the conceptual design of a full coring apparatus for preload delivery and core removal. Drilling and coring bits have been designed so that a portion of the longitudinal motion supplied by the ultrasonic transducer is converted into torsional motion. Results of drilling/coring trials are also presented.

Planetary Produced Axionlike Particles and Gamma-Ray Flashes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liolios, Anastasios

2008-01-01

Axion-like particles could be created in nuclear disintegrations and deexitations of natural radionuclides present in the interior of the planets. For the Earth and the other planets with a surrounding magnetosphere, axion production could result to gamma and X-ray emission, originating from axion to photon conversion in the planetary magnetic fields. The estimated planetary axion fluxes as well as the related gamma ray fluxes from Earth and the giant planets of our solar system are given along with the axion coupling to ordinary matter. A possible connection with the enigmatic Terrestrial Gamma-ray Flashes (TGFs) discovered in 1994 by CGRO/BATSE and also detected with the RHESSI satellite, is also discussed.

Agriculture production as a major driver of the earth system exceeding planetary boundaries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Campbell, Bruce Morgan; Beare, Douglas J.; Bennett, Elena M.

2017-01-01

We explore the role of agriculture in destabilizing the Earth system at the planetary scale, through examining nine planetary boundaries, or “safe limits”: land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, biosphere integrity, climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone...

Planetary protection issues linked to human missions to Mars

Science.gov (United States)

Debus, A.

According to United Nations Treaties and handled presently by the Committee of Space Research COSPAR the exploration of the Solar System has to comply with planetary protection requirements The goal of planetary protection is to protect celestial bodies from terrestrial contamination and also to protect the Earth environment from an eventual biocontamination carried by return samples or by space systems returning to the Earth Mars is presently one of the main target at exobiology point of view and a lot of missions are operating on travel or scheduled for its exploration Some of them include payload dedicated to the search of life or traces of life and one of the goals of these missions is also to prepare sample return missions with the ultimate objective to walk on Mars Robotic missions to Mars have to comply with planetary protection specifications well known presently and planetary protection programs are implemented with a very good reliability taking into account an experience of 40 years now For sample return missions a set of stringent requirements have been approved by the COSPAR and technical challenges have now to be won in order to preserve Earth biosphere from an eventual contamination risk Sending astronauts on Mars will gather all these constraints added with the human dimension of the mission The fact that the astronauts are huge contamination sources for Mars and that they are also potential carrier of a contamination risk back to Earth add also ethical considerations to be considered For the preparation of a such

Chemical kinetics and modeling of planetary atmospheres

Science.gov (United States)

Yung, Yuk L.

1990-01-01

A unified overview is presented for chemical kinetics and chemical modeling in planetary atmospheres. The recent major advances in the understanding of the chemistry of the terrestrial atmosphere make the study of planets more interesting and relevant. A deeper understanding suggests that the important chemical cycles have a universal character that connects the different planets and ultimately link together the origin and evolution of the solar system. The completeness (or incompleteness) of the data base for chemical kinetics in planetary atmospheres will always be judged by comparison with that for the terrestrial atmosphere. In the latter case, the chemistry of H, O, N, and Cl species is well understood. S chemistry is poorly understood. In the atmospheres of Jovian planets and Titan, the C-H chemistry of simple species (containing 2 or less C atoms) is fairly well understood. The chemistry of higher hydrocarbons and the C-N, P-N chemistry is much less understood. In the atmosphere of Venus, the dominant chemistry is that of chlorine and sulfur, and very little is known about C1-S coupled chemistry. A new frontier for chemical kinetics both in the Earth and planetary atmospheres is the study of heterogeneous reactions. The formation of the ozone hole on Earth, the ubiquitous photochemical haze on Venus and in the Jovian planets and Titan all testify to the importance of heterogeneous reactions. It remains a challenge to connect the gas phase chemistry to the production of aerosols.

Laboratory space physics: Investigating the physics of space plasmas in the laboratory

Science.gov (United States)

Howes, Gregory G.

2018-05-01

Laboratory experiments provide a valuable complement to explore the fundamental physics of space plasmas without the limitations inherent to spacecraft measurements. Specifically, experiments overcome the restriction that spacecraft measurements are made at only one (or a few) points in space, enable greater control of the plasma conditions and applied perturbations, can be reproducible, and are orders of magnitude less expensive than launching spacecraft. Here, I highlight key open questions about the physics of space plasmas and identify the aspects of these problems that can potentially be tackled in laboratory experiments. Several past successes in laboratory space physics provide concrete examples of how complementary experiments can contribute to our understanding of physical processes at play in the solar corona, solar wind, planetary magnetospheres, and the outer boundary of the heliosphere. I present developments on the horizon of laboratory space physics, identifying velocity space as a key new frontier, highlighting new and enhanced experimental facilities, and showcasing anticipated developments to produce improved diagnostics and innovative analysis methods. A strategy for future laboratory space physics investigations will be outlined, with explicit connections to specific fundamental plasma phenomena of interest.

Avenues for Scientist Involvement in Planetary Science Education and Public Outreach

Science.gov (United States)

Shipp, S. S.; Buxner, S.; Cobabe-Ammann, E. A.; Dalton, H.; Bleacher, L.; Scalice, D.

2012-12-01

The Planetary Science Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) Forum is charged by NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) with engaging, extending, and supporting the community of E/PO professionals and scientists involved in planetary science education activities in order to help them more effectively and efficiently share NASA science with all learners. A number of resources and opportunities for involvement are available for planetary scientists involved in - or interested in being involved in - E/PO. The Forum provides opportunities for community members to stay informed, communicate, collaborate, leverage existing programs and partnerships, and become more skilled education practitioners. Interested planetary scientists can receive newsletters, participate in monthly calls, interact through an online community workspace, and attend annual E/PO community meetings and meetings of opportunity at science and education conferences. The Forum also provides professional development opportunities on a myriad of topics, from common pre-conceptions in planetary science to program evaluation, to delivering effective workshops. Thematic approaches, such as the Year of the Solar System (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/yss), are coordinated by the Forum; through these efforts resources are presented topically, in a manner that can be easily ported into diverse learning environments. Information about the needs of audiences with which scientists interact - higher education, K-12 education, informal education, and public - currently is being researched by SMD's Audience-Based Working Groups. Their findings and recommendations will be made available to inform the activities and products of E/PO providers so they are able to better serve these audiences. Also in production is a "one-stop-shop" of SMD E/PO products and resources that can be used in conjunction with E/PO activities. Further supporting higher-education efforts, the Forum coordinates a network of planetary science

Analysis of dynamic meshing characteristic of planetary gear transmission in wind power increasing gearbox

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Jungang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Dynamic behavior of planetary gear’s tooth contact surface in the different location can better conform operation condition comparing to the general gear pair. Nonlinear finite element algorithm was derived according to the basic control equation of contact dynamics. A finite element model of planetary gear transmission in wind power increasing gearbox was proposed considering different meshing locations based on nonlinear finite element solution. The characteristics of stress distribution at different meshing positions were analyzed. A simulation of the meshing process was conducted using finite element analysis. It was shown that node stresses of external meshing planetary gear varied significantly at different position. The analysis provides some useful insights into the performance of planetary gear’s tooth contact surface.

Global Analysis of a Planetary Gear Train

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tongjie Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available By using the Poincaré-like cell-to-cell mapping method and shooting method, the global characteristics of a planetary gear train are studied based on the torsional vibration model with errors of transmission, time-varying meshing stiffness, and multiple gear backlashes. The study results reveal that the planetary with a certain set of parameters has four coexisting periodic orbits, which are P-1, P-2, P-4, and P-8, respectively. P-1 and P-2 motions are not of long-term stability, P-8 motion is of local stability, and P-4 motion is of global stability. Shooting method does not have the capacity of searching coexisting periodic orbits in a global scope, and it is easy to omit some periodic orbits which are far away from the main gropes of periodic orbits.

Exploring the planetary boundary for chemical pollution

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Diamond, Miriam L.; de Wit, Cynthia A.; Molander, Sverker

2015-01-01

Rockström et al. (2009a, 2009b) have warned that humanity must reduce anthropogenic impacts defined by nine planetary boundaries if "unacceptable global change" is to be avoided. Chemical pollution was identified as one of those boundaries for which continued impacts could erode the resilience...... of ecosystems and humanity. The central concept of the planetary boundary (or boundaries) for chemical pollution (PBCP or PBCPs) is that the Earth has a finite assimilative capacity for chemical pollution, which includes persistent, as well as readily degradable chemicals released at local to regional scales......, which in aggregate threaten ecosystem and human viability. The PBCP allows humanity to explicitly address the increasingly global aspects of chemical pollution throughout a chemical's life cycle and the need for a global response of internationally coordinated control measures. We submit that sufficient...

1984 Mauna Loa eruption and planetary geolgoy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Moore, H.J.

1987-01-01

In planetary geology, lava flows on the Moon and Mars are commonly treated as relatively simple systems. Some of the complexities of actual lava flows are illustrated using the main flow system of the 1984 Mauna Loa eruption. The outline, brief narrative, and results given are based on a number of sources. The implications of the results to planetary geology are clear. Volume flow rates during an eruption depend, in part, on the volatile content of the lava. These differ from the volume flow rates calculated from post eruption flow dimensions and the duration of the eruption and from those using models that assume a constant density. Mass flow rates might be more appropriate because the masses of volatiles in lavas are usually small, but variable and sometimes unknown densities impose severe restrictions on mass estimates

Morphology of bipolar planetary nebulae. I. Two-dimensional spectrophotometry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pascoli, G.

1990-01-01

Two-dimensional spectrophotometric observations of bipolar planetary nebulae were performed by using a CCD detector mounted at the Cassegrain focus of either 1.54 m Danish Telescope or 2.2 m German Telescope at La Silla (ESO) in Chile. Emission lines have been selected with the help of narrow band-pass interference filters (Δλ∼ 10 - 20 A). Isophotal maps in various lines Hα, [NII] λ 6584, [OIII] λ 5007 and [SII] λλ 6717-6731 are presented. Particular attention has been given to scrutinize the symmetries inside a few bipolar planetary nebulae, in order to subsequently investigate their space structure

Planetary protection policy overview and application to future missions

Science.gov (United States)

Rummel, John D.

1989-01-01

The current status of planetary protection (quarantine) policy within NASA is discussed, together with the issues of planetary protection and back-contamination as related to future missions. The policy adopted by COSPAR in 1984 (and recently reaffirmed by the NASA Administrator) for application to all unmanned missions to other solar system bodies and all manned and unmanned sample return missions is examined. Special attention is given to the implementation of the policy and to the specific quarantine-related constraints on spacecraft involved in solar system exploration that depend on the nature of the mission and the identity of the target body.

Pythagoras' celestial spheres in the context of a simple model for quantization of planetary orbits

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oliveira Neto, Marcal de [Instituto de Quimica, Universidade de Brasilia, Campus Universitario, Asa Norte, 70904-970 Brasilia, DF (Brazil)]. E-mail: marcal@unb.br

2006-10-15

In the present article we attempt to search for a correlation between Pythagoras and Kepler's ideas on harmony of the celestial spheres through simple quantization procedure to describe planetary orbits in our solar system. It is reasoned that starting from a Bohr-like atomic model, planetary mean radii and periods of revolution can be obtained from a set of small integers and just one input parameter given by the mean planetary radius of Mercury. It is also shown that the mean planetary distances can be calculated with the help of a Schroedinger-type equation considering the flatness of the solar system. An attempt to obtain planetary radii using both gravitational and electrostatic approaches linked by Newton's dimensionless constant of gravity is presented.

Using Primary Literature for Teaching Undergraduate Planetary Sciences

Science.gov (United States)

Levine, J.

2013-05-01

Articles from the primary scientific literature can be a valuable teaching tool in undergraduate classrooms. At Colgate University, I emphasize selected research articles in an upper-level undergraduate course in planetary sciences. In addition to their value for conveying specific scientific content, I find that they also impart larger lessons which are especially apt in planetary sciences and allied fields. First, because of the interdisciplinary nature of planetary sciences, students discover that contributions to outstanding problems may arrive from unexpected directions, so they need to be aware of the multi-faceted nature of scientific problems. For instance, after millennia of astrometric attempts, the scale of the Solar System was determined with extraordinary precision with emerging radar technology in the 1960's. Second, students learn the importance of careful work, with due attention to detail. After all, the timescales of planetary formation are encoded in systematic isotopic variations of a few parts in 10,000; in students' own experiences with laboratory data they might well overlook such a small effect. Third, students identify the often-tortuous connections between measured and inferred quantities, which corrects a common student misconception that all quantities of interest (e.g., the age of a meteorite) can be measured directly. Fourth, research articles provide opportunities for students to practice the interpretation of graphical data, since figures often represent a large volume of data in succinct form. Fifth, and perhaps of greatest importance, by considering the uncertainties inherent in reported data, students come to recognize the limits of scientific understanding, the extent to which scientific conclusions are justified (or not), and the lengths to which working scientists go to mitigate their uncertainties. These larger lessons are best mediated by students' own encounters with the articles they read, but require instructors to make

The Star–Planet Connection. I. Using Stellar Composition to Observationally Constrain Planetary Mineralogy for the 10 Closest Stars

Science.gov (United States)

Hinkel, Natalie R.; Unterborn, Cayman T.

2018-01-01

The compositions of stars and planets are connected, but the definition of “habitability” and the “habitable zone” only take into account the physical relationship between the star and planet. Planets, however, are made truly habitable by both chemical and physical processes that regulate climatic and geochemical cycling between atmosphere, surface, and interior reservoirs. Despite this, an “Earth-like” planet is often defined as a planet made of a mixture of rock and Fe that is roughly 1 Earth-density. To understand the interior of a terrestrial planet, the stellar abundances of planet-building elements (e.g., Mg, Si, and Fe) can be used as a proxy for the planet’s composition. We explore the planetary mineralogy and structure for fictive planets around the 10 stars closest to the Sun using stellar abundances from the Hypatia Catalog. Although our sample contains stars that are both sub- and super-solar in their abundances, we find that the mineralogies are very similar for all 10 planets—since the error or spread in the stellar abundances create significant degeneracy in the models. We show that abundance uncertainties need to be on the order of [Fe/H] < 0.02 dex, [Si/H] < 0.01 dex, [Al/H] < 0.002 dex, while [Mg/H] and [Ca/H] < 0.001 dex in order to distinguish two unique planetary populations in our sample of 10 stars. While these precisions are high, we believe that they are possible given certain abundance techniques, in addition to methodological transparency, that have recently been demonstrated in the literature. However, without these precisions, the uncertainty in planetary structures will be so high that we will be unable to confidently state that a planet is like the Earth, or unlike anything we have ever seen. We made some cuts and ruled out a number of stars, but these 10 are still rather nearby.

Topics in planetary plasmaspheres

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, C.K.

1977-01-01

Contributions to the understanding of two distinct kinds of planetary plasmaspheres: namely the earth-type characterized by an ionospheric source and a convection limited radial extent, and the Jupiter-type characterized by a satellite source and a radial extent determined by flux tube interchange motions. In both cases the central question is the geometry of the plasma distribution in the magnetosphere as it is determined by the appropriate production and loss mechanisms. The contributions contained herein concern the explication and clarification of these production and loss mechanisms

Considering the Ethical Implications of Space Exploration and Potential Impacts on Planetary Environments and Possible Indigenous Life

Science.gov (United States)

Race, Margaret

Since the early days of the Outer Space Treaty, a primary concern of planetary protection policy has been to avoid contamination of planetary environments by terrestrial microbes that could compromise current or subsequent scientific investigations, particularly those searching for indigenous life. Over the past decade robotic missions and astrobiological research have greatly increased our understanding of diverse planetary landscapes and altered our views about the survivability of terrestrial organisms in extreme environments. They have also expanded notions about the prospect for finding evidence of extraterrestrial life. Recently a number of different groups, including the COSPAR Planetary Protection Workshop in Montreal (January 2008), have questioned whether it is advisable to re-examine current biological planetary protection policy in light of the ethical implications and responsibilities to preserve planetary environments and possible indigenous life. This paper discusses the issues and concerns that have led to recent recommendations for convening an international workshop specifically to discuss planetary protection policy and practices within a broader ethical and practical framework, and to consider whether revisions to policy and practices should be made. In addition to including various international scientific and legal organizations and experts in such a workshop, it will be important to find ways to involve the public in these discussions about ethical aspects of planetary exploration.

NOMINAL VALUES FOR SELECTED SOLAR AND PLANETARY QUANTITIES: IAU 2015 RESOLUTION B3

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Prša, Andrej [Villanova University, Department of Astrophysics and Planetary Science, 800 Lancaster Ave., Villanova, PA 19085 (United States); Harmanec, Petr [Astronomical Institute of the Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, V Holešovičkách 2, CZ-180 00 Praha 8 (Czech Republic); Torres, Guillermo [Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States); Mamajek, Eric [Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627-0171 (United States); Asplund, Martin [Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2611 (Australia); Capitaine, Nicole [SYRTE, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC, LNE, 61 avenue de lObservatoire, F-75014 Paris (France); Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen [Stellar Astrophysics Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C (Denmark); Depagne, Éric [South African Astronomical Observatory, P.O. Box 9 Observatory, Cape Town (South Africa); Haberreiter, Margit [Physikalisch-Meteorologisches Observatorium Davos/World Radiation Center, Dorfstrasse 33, Davos (Switzerland); Hekker, Saskia [Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, D-37077 Göttingen (Germany); Hilton, James [US Naval Observatory, 3450 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20392-5420 (United States); Kopp, Greg [Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, 1234 Innovation Drive, Boulder, CO 80303-7814 (United States); and others

2016-08-01

In this brief communication we provide the rationale for and the outcome of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) resolution vote at the XXIXth General Assembly in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2015, on recommended nominal conversion constants for selected solar and planetary properties. The problem addressed by the resolution is a lack of established conversion constants between solar and planetary values and SI units: a missing standard has caused a proliferation of solar values (e.g., solar radius, solar irradiance, solar luminosity, solar effective temperature, and solar mass parameter) in the literature, with cited solar values typically based on best estimates at the time of paper writing. As precision of observations increases, a set of consistent values becomes increasingly important. To address this, an IAU Working Group on Nominal Units for Stellar and Planetary Astronomy formed in 2011, uniting experts from the solar, stellar, planetary, exoplanetary, and fundamental astronomy, as well as from general standards fields to converge on optimal values for nominal conversion constants. The effort resulted in the IAU 2015 Resolution B3, passed at the IAU General Assembly by a large majority. The resolution recommends the use of nominal solar and planetary values, which are by definition exact and are expressed in SI units. These nominal values should be understood as conversion factors only, not as the true solar/planetary properties or current best estimates. Authors and journal editors are urged to join in using the standard values set forth by this resolution in future work and publications to help minimize further confusion.

NOMINAL VALUES FOR SELECTED SOLAR AND PLANETARY QUANTITIES: IAU 2015 RESOLUTION B3

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prša, Andrej; Harmanec, Petr; Torres, Guillermo; Mamajek, Eric; Asplund, Martin; Capitaine, Nicole; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jørgen; Depagne, Éric; Haberreiter, Margit; Hekker, Saskia; Hilton, James; Kopp, Greg

2016-01-01

In this brief communication we provide the rationale for and the outcome of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) resolution vote at the XXIXth General Assembly in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2015, on recommended nominal conversion constants for selected solar and planetary properties. The problem addressed by the resolution is a lack of established conversion constants between solar and planetary values and SI units: a missing standard has caused a proliferation of solar values (e.g., solar radius, solar irradiance, solar luminosity, solar effective temperature, and solar mass parameter) in the literature, with cited solar values typically based on best estimates at the time of paper writing. As precision of observations increases, a set of consistent values becomes increasingly important. To address this, an IAU Working Group on Nominal Units for Stellar and Planetary Astronomy formed in 2011, uniting experts from the solar, stellar, planetary, exoplanetary, and fundamental astronomy, as well as from general standards fields to converge on optimal values for nominal conversion constants. The effort resulted in the IAU 2015 Resolution B3, passed at the IAU General Assembly by a large majority. The resolution recommends the use of nominal solar and planetary values, which are by definition exact and are expressed in SI units. These nominal values should be understood as conversion factors only, not as the true solar/planetary properties or current best estimates. Authors and journal editors are urged to join in using the standard values set forth by this resolution in future work and publications to help minimize further confusion.

Origin of planetary primordial rare gas - The possible role of adsorption.

Science.gov (United States)

Fanale, F. P.; Cannon, W. A.

1972-01-01

The degree of physical adsorption of Ne, Ar, Kr, and Xe on pulverized samples of the Allende meteorite at 113 K has been measured. The observed pattern of equilibrium enrichment of heavy rare gases over light on the pulverized meteorite surfaces relative to the gas phase is similar to the enrichment pattern exhibited by planetary primordial rare gas when compared with the composition of solar rare gas. Results indicate that, at 113 K, a total nebular pressure of from .01 to .001 atm would be required to explain the Ar, Kr, and Xe abundances in carbonaceous chondrites with an adsorption mechanism. This pressure estimate is compatible with the range of possible nebular pressures suggested by astrophysical arguments. However, the subsequent mechanism by which initially adsorbed gas might have been transferred into the interiors of grains cannot be identified at present.

Space and Planetary Resources

Science.gov (United States)

Abbud-Madrid, Angel

2018-02-01

The space and multitude of celestial bodies surrounding Earth hold a vast wealth of resources for a variety of space and terrestrial applications. The unlimited solar energy, vacuum, and low gravity in space, as well as the minerals, metals, water, atmospheric gases, and volatile elements on the Moon, asteroids, comets, and the inner and outer planets of the Solar System and their moons, constitute potential valuable resources for robotic and human space missions and for future use in our own planet. In the short term, these resources could be transformed into useful materials at the site where they are found to extend mission duration and to reduce the costly dependence from materials sent from Earth. Making propellants and human consumables from local resources can significantly reduce mission mass and cost, enabling longer stays and fueling transportation systems for use within and beyond the planetary surface. Use of finely grained soils and rocks can serve for habitat construction, radiation protection, solar cell fabrication, and food growth. The same material could also be used to develop repair and replacement capabilities using advanced manufacturing technologies. Following similar mining practices utilized for centuries on Earth, identifying, extracting, and utilizing extraterrestrial resources will enable further space exploration, while increasing commercial activities beyond our planet. In the long term, planetary resources and solar energy could also be brought to Earth if obtaining these resources locally prove to be no longer economically or environmentally acceptable. Throughout human history, resources have been the driving force for the exploration and settling of our planet. Similarly, extraterrestrial resources will make space the next destination in the quest for further exploration and expansion of our species. However, just like on Earth, not all challenges are scientific and technological. As private companies start working toward

Planetary Data Archiving Activities of ISRO

Science.gov (United States)

Gopala Krishna, Barla; D, Rao J.; Thakkar, Navita; Prashar, Ajay; Manthira Moorthi, S.

ISRO has launched its first planetary mission to moon viz., Chandrayaan-1 on October 22, 2008. This mission carried eleven instruments; a wealth of science data has been collected during its mission life (November 2008 to August 2009), which is archived at Indian Space Science Data Centre (ISSDC). The data centre ISSDC is responsible for the Ingest, storage, processing, Archive, and dissemination of the payload and related ancillary data in addition to real-time spacecraft operations support. ISSDC is designed to provide high computation power, large storage and hosting a variety of applications necessary to support all the planetary and space science missions of ISRO. State-of-the-art architecture of ISSDC provides the facility to ingest the raw payload data of all the science payloads of the science satellites in automatic manner, processes raw data and generates payload specific processed outputs, generate higher level products and disseminates the data sets to principal investigators, guest observers, payload operations centres (POC) and to general public. The data archive makes use of the well-proven archive standards of the Planetary Data System (PDS). The long term Archive for five payloads of Chandrayaan-1 data viz., TMC, HySI, SARA, M3 and MiniSAR is released from ISSDC on19th April 2013 (http://www.issdc.gov.in) to the users. Additionally DEMs generated from possible passes of Chandrayaan-1 TMC stereo data and sample map sheets of Lunar Atlas are also archived and released from ISSDC along with the LTA. Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is the recent planetary mission launched on October 22, 2013; currently enroute to MARS, carrying five instruments (http://www.isro.org) viz., Mars Color Camera (MCC) to map various morphological features on Mars with varying resolution and scales using the unique elliptical orbit, Methane Sensor for Mars (MSM) to measure total column of methane in the Martian atmosphere, Thermal Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (TIS) to map surface

Planetary-Whigs: Optical MEMS-Based Seismometer, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — During this Phase I, Michigan Aerospace Corporation will adapt the design of an optical MEMS seismometer for lunar and other planetary science instrumentation. The...

Sensor Array Analyzer for Planetary Exploration, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Future planetary exploration missions such as those planned by NASA and other space agencies over the next few decades require advanced chemical and biological...

On planetary nebulae and Wolf-Rayet stars in the galactic-centre field

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Allen, D.A.

1979-01-01

A UK Schmidt objective-prism plate of the Galactic-centre field has been examined. Of the 74 objects in the field which have been catalogued as planetary nebulae, only half appear correctly classified; the others include Be stars, symbiotic stars, and stars without emission lines. A further 19 planetary nebulae and two Wolf-Rayet stars have been discovered. (author)

The World is Spinning: Constraining the Origin of Supermassive Gas Giant Planets at Wide Separations Using Planetary Spin

Science.gov (United States)

Bryan, Marta; Knutson, Heather; Batygin, Konstantin; Benneke, Björn; Bowler, Brendan

2017-01-01

Planetary spin can inform our understanding of planet accretion histories, which determine final masses and atmospheric compositions, as well as the formation of moons and rings. At present, the physics behind how gas giant planets spin up is still very poorly understood. We know that when giant planets form, they accrete material and angular momentum via a circumplanetary disk, causing the planet to spin up. In order to prevent planet spins from reaching break-up velocity, some mechanism must regulate these spins. However, there is currently no well-formulated picture for how planet spins evolve. This is in part due to the fact that there are very few measurements of giant planet spin rates currently available. Outside the solar system, to date there has only been one published spin measurement of a directly imaged planet, beta Pic b. We use Keck/NIRSPEC to measure spin rates for a sample of bound and free-floating directly imaged planetary mass objects, providing a first look at the distribution of spin rates for these objects.

Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Human Extraterrestrial Missions: Workshop Report

Science.gov (United States)

Race, Margaret S. (Editor); Johnson, James E. (Editor); Spry, James A. (Editor); Siegel, Bette; Conley, Catharine A.

2015-01-01

This report on Planetary Protection Knowledge Gaps for Human Extraterrestrial Missions summarizes the presentations, deliberations and findings of a workshop at NASA Ames Research Center, March 24-26, 2015, which was attended by more than 100 participants representing a diverse mix of science, engineering, technology, and policy areas. The main objective of the three-day workshop was to identify specific knowledge gaps that need to be addressed to make incremental progress towards the development of NASA Procedural Requirements (NPRs) for Planetary Protection during human missions to Mars.

Planetary Dynamos: Investigations of Saturn and Ancient Mars

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Stanley, Sabine [University of Toronto

2012-04-18

Magnetic field observations by spacecraft missions have provided vital information on planetary dynamos. The four giant planets as well as Earth, Mercury and Ganymede have observable magnetic fields generated by active dynamos. In contrast, Moon and Mars only have remanent crustal fields from dynamo action in their early histories. A variety of magnetic field morphologies and intensities can be found in the solar system. We have found that some of the differences between planetary magnetic fields can be explained as the result of the presence of boundary thermal variations or stably-stratified layers. In this talk, I will discuss how dynamos are affected by these complications and discuss the implications for Mars’ magnetic dichotomy and Saturn’s extremely axisymmetric magnetic field.

Radial Velocity Detection of Extra-Solar Planetary Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cochran, William D.

2004-01-01

This NASA Origins Program grant supported four closely related research programs at The University of Texas at Austin: 1) The McDonald Observatory Planetary Search (MOPS) Program, using the McDonald Observatory 2.7m Harlan Smith telescope and its 2dcoude spectrometer, 2) A high-precision radial-velocity survey of Hyades dwarfs, using the Keck telescope and its HIRES spectrograph, 3) A program at McDonald Observatory to obtain spectra of the parent stars of planetary systems at R = 210,000, and 4) the start of high precision radial velocity surveys using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The most important results from NASA support of these research programs are described. A list of all papers published under support of this grant is included at the end.

Design of Mobility System for Ground Model of Planetary Exploration Rover

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Younkyu Kim

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In recent years, a number of missions have been planned and conducted worldwide on the planets such as Mars, which involves the unmanned robotic exploration with the use of rover. The rover is an important system for unmanned planetary exploration, performing the locomotion and sample collection and analysis at the exploration target of the planetary surface designated by the operator. This study investigates the development of mobility system for the rover ground model necessary to the planetary surface exploration for the benefit of future planetary exploration mission in Korea. First, the requirements for the rover mobility system are summarized and a new mechanism is proposed for a stable performance on rough terrain which consists of the passive suspension system with 8 wheeled double 4-bar linkage (DFBL, followed by the performance evaluation for the mechanism of the mobility system based on the shape design and simulation. The proposed mobility system DFBL was compared with the Rocker-Bogie suspension system of US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration and 8 wheeled mobility system CRAB8 developed in Switzerland, using the simulation to demonstrate the superiority with respect to the stability of locomotion. On the basis of the simulation results, a general system configuration was proposed and designed for the rover manufacture.

Chemical composition of planetary nebulae : Including ISO results

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pottasch, [No Value; Beintema, DA; Salas, JB; Feibelman, WA; Henney, WJ; Franco, J; Martos, M; Pena, M

2002-01-01

The method of determining abundances using Infrared Space Observatory spectra is discussed. The results for seven planetary nebula are given. Using these data, a preliminary discussion of their evolution is given.

Ultra-Compact Raman Spectrometer for Planetary Explorations

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Derek; Hornef, James; Lucas, John; Elsayed-Ali, Hani; Abedin, M. Nurul

2016-01-01

To develop a compact Raman spectroscopy system with features that will make it suitable for future space missions which require surface landing. Specifically, this system will be appropriate for any mission in which planetary surface samples need to be measured and analyzed.

Earthbound Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAVS) As Planetary Science Testbeds

Science.gov (United States)

Pieri, D. C.; Bland, G.; Diaz, J. A.; Fladeland, M. M.

2014-12-01

Recent advances in the technology of unmanned vehicles have greatly expanded the range of contemplated terrestrial operational environments for their use, including aerial, surface, and submarine. The advances have been most pronounced in the areas of autonomy, miniaturization, durability, standardization, and ease of operation, most notably (especially in the popular press) for airborne vehicles. Of course, for a wide range of planetary venues, autonomy at high cost of both money and risk, has always been a requirement. Most recently, missions to Mars have also featured an unprecedented degree of mobility. Combining the traditional planetary surface deployment operational and science imperatives with emerging, very accessible, and relatively economical small UAV platforms on Earth can provide flexible, rugged, self-directed, test-bed platforms for landed instruments and strategies that will ultimately be directed elsewhere, and, in the process, provide valuable earth science data. While the most direct transfer of technology from terrestrial to planetary venues is perhaps for bodies with atmospheres (and oceans), with appropriate technology and strategy accommodations, single and networked UAVs can be designed to operate on even airless bodies, under a variety of gravities. In this presentation, we present and use results and lessons learned from our recent earth-bound UAV volcano deployments, as well as our future plans for such, to conceptualize a range of planetary and small-body missions. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of students and colleagues at our home institutions, and the government of Costa Rica, without which our UAV deployments would not have been possible. This work was carried out, in part, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology under contract to NASA.

Robotic Planetary Drill Tests

Science.gov (United States)

Glass, Brian J.; Thompson, S.; Paulsen, G.

2010-01-01

Several proposed or planned planetary science missions to Mars and other Solar System bodies over the next decade require subsurface access by drilling. This paper discusses the problems of remote robotic drilling, an automation and control architecture based loosely on observed human behaviors in drilling on Earth, and an overview of robotic drilling field test results using this architecture since 2005. Both rotary-drag and rotary-percussive drills are targeted. A hybrid diagnostic approach incorporates heuristics, model-based reasoning and vibration monitoring with neural nets. Ongoing work leads to flight-ready drilling software.

Sustainability, glocal development and planetary citizenship. References for a Pedagogy towards Sustainable Development

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M.ª Ángeles MURGA-MENOYO

2017-06-01

Full Text Available Sustainability approaches advise adopting a glocal development model that links local possibilities and practices to global needs and constraints. The complexity of this phenomenon, taken to the political plane, leads to a model of planetary citizenship where humanity’s commitment to nature and the necessary social equity amongst human beings are emphasized. This has clear implications for pedagogy, which this paper aims to highlight. This work starts from the sustainable development scenarios and concludes with a proposal of a planetary citizenship rooted locally. Glocality and planetary citizenship, a concept close to that of cosmopolitan citizenship –once stripped of its anthropocentric connotations–, both lead to significant missions of education in this framework: the formation of a holistic worldview, based on a complex-system thinking, and building a planetary citizenship. In both cases, the consideration of the human as an eco-dependent being, attributes nature an essential position in the educational processes.

Review on the Role of Planetary Factors on Habitability.

Science.gov (United States)

Kereszturi, A; Noack, L

2016-11-01

In this work various factors on the habitability were considered, focusing on conditions irrespective of the central star's radiation, to see the role of specific planetary body related effects. These so called planetary factors were evaluated to identify those trans-domain issues where important information is missing but good chance exit to be filled by new knowledge that might be gained in the next decade(s). Among these strategic knowledge gaps, specific issues are listed, like occurrence of radioactive nucleides in star forming regions, models to estimate the existence of subsurface liquid water from bulk parameters plus evolutionary context of the given system, estimation on the existence of redox gradient depending on the environment type etc. These issues require substantial improvement of modelling and statistical handling of various cases, as "planetary environment types". Based on our current knowledge it is probable that subsurface habitability is at least as frequent, or more frequent than surface habitability. Unfortunately it is more difficult from observations to infer conditions for subsurface habitability, but specific argumentation might help with indirect ways, which might result in new methods to approach habitability in general.

Advances in planetary geology, volume 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1986-07-01

This publication is a continuation of volume 1; it is a compilation of reports focusing on research into the origin and evolution of the solar system with emphasis on planetary geology. Specific reports include a multispectral and geomorphic investigation of the surface of Europa and a geologic interpretation of remote sensing data for the Martian volcano Ascreaus Mons

The internal kinematics of the planetary nebula NGC 650/1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Taylor, K.

1979-01-01

Hα and [N II], lambda 6584 line profiles from the bright lobes of planetary nebula NGC 650/1 have been obtained. These emission lines show a very strong symmetrical triple-peak velocity structure, not observed previously to the author's knowledge in planetary nebulae. Models are tentatively proposed to explain both the velocity data and the nebula's optical appearance. The velocity splitting amounts to approximately 62 km/s and the rest frame of the nebula is found to have a heliocentric radial velocity of -19 +- 2 km/s. (author)

Tests of the planetary hypothesis for PTFO 8-8695b

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Yu, Liang; Winn, Joshua N.; Gillon, Michaël

2015-01-01

The T Tauri star PTFO 8-8695 exhibits periodic fading events that have been interpreted as the transits of a giant planet on a precessing orbit. Here we present three tests of the planet hypothesis. First, we sought evidence for the secular changes in light-curve morphology that are predicted...... planetary orbit. Our spectroscopy also revealed strong, time-variable, high-velocity H{\\alpha} and Ca H & K emission features. All these observations cast doubt on the planetary hypothesis, and suggest instead that the fading events represent starspots, eclipses by circumstellar dust, or occultations...

Fiber Optic Strain Sensor for Planetary Gear Diagnostics

Science.gov (United States)

Kiddy, Jason S.; Lewicki, David G.; LaBerge, Kelsen E.; Ehinger, Ryan T.; Fetty, Jason

2011-01-01

This paper presents a new sensing approach for helicopter damage detection in the planetary stage of a helicopter transmission based on a fiber optic strain sensor array. Complete helicopter transmission damage detection has proven itself a difficult task due to the complex geometry of the planetary reduction stage. The crowded and complex nature of the gearbox interior does not allow for attachment of sensors within the rotating frame. Hence, traditional vibration-based diagnostics are instead based on measurements from externally mounted sensors, typically accelerometers, fixed to the gearbox exterior. However, this type of sensor is susceptible to a number of external disturbances that can corrupt the data, leading to false positives or missed detection of potentially catastrophic faults. Fiber optic strain sensors represent an appealing alternative to the accelerometer. Their small size and multiplexibility allows for potentially greater sensing resolution and accuracy, as well as redundancy, when employed as an array of sensors. The work presented in this paper is focused on the detection of gear damage in the planetary stage of a helicopter transmission using a fiber optic strain sensor band. The sensor band includes an array of 13 strain sensors, and is mounted on the ring gear of a Bell Helicopter OH-58C transmission. Data collected from the sensor array is compared to accelerometer data, and the damage detection results are presented

Mitchell Receives 2013 Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Science: Citation

Science.gov (United States)

McKinnon, William B.

2014-07-01

The Greeley Early Career Award is named for pioneering planetary scientist Ronald Greeley. Ron was involved in nearly every major planetary mission from the 1970s until his death and was extraordinarily active in service to the planetary science community. Ron's greatest legacies, however, are those he mentored through the decades, and it is young scientists whose work and promise we seek to recognize. This year's Greeley award winner is Jonathan L. Mitchell, an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Jonathan received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and after a postdoc at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, he joined the UCLA faculty, where he holds a joint appointment in Earth and space sciences and in atmospheric sciences.

Energy Balance Models of planetary climate as a tool for investigating the habitability of terrestrial planets and its evolution

Science.gov (United States)

Ferri, G.; Murante, G.; Provenzale, A.; Silva, L.; Vladilo, G.

2012-04-01

The study of the habitability and potential for life formation of terrestrial planets requires a considerable work of modelization owing to the limited amount of experimental constraints typical of this type of research. As an example, the paucity of experimental Archean data severely limits the study of the habitability of the primitive Earth at the epoch of the origin of life. In the case of exoplanets the amount of experimental information available is quite limited and the need for modelization strong. Here we focus on the modelization of the surface planetary temperature, a key thermodynamical quantity used to define the habitability. Energy Balance Models (EBM) of planetary climate provide a simple way to calculate the temperature-latitude profile of terrestrial planets with a small amount of computing resources. Thanks to this fact EBMs offer an excellent tool to exploring a wide range of parameter space and therefore testing the effects of variations of physical/chemical quantities unconstrained by experimental data. In particular, one can easily probe possible scenarios of habitability at different stages of planetary evolution. We have recently implemented one-dimensional EBMs featuring the possibility of probing variations of astronomical and geophysical parameters, such as stellar luminosity, orbital semi-major axis and eccentricity, obliquity of the planetary axis, planet rotational velocity, land/ocean surface fractions and thermal capacities, and latitudinal heat diffusion. After testing our models against results obtained in previous work (Williams & Kasting 1997, Icarus, 129, 254; Spiegel et al. 2008, ApJ, 681, 1609), we introduced a novel parametrization of the diffusion coefficient as a function of the stellar zenith distance. Our models have been validated using the mean temperature-latitude profiles of the present Earth and its seasonal variations; the global albedo has been used as an additional constraint. In this work we present specific

Planetary boundaries : Governing emerging risks and opportunities

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Galaz, V.; de Zeeuw, Aart; Shiroyama, Hideaki; Tripley, Debbie

The climate, ecosystems and species, ozone layer, acidity of the oceans, the flow of energy and elements through nature, landscape change, freshwater systems, aerosols, and toxins—these constitute the planetary boundaries within which humanity must find a safe way to live and prosper. These are

75 FR 57520 - NASA Advisory Council; Planetary Science Subcommittee; Supporting Research and Technology Working...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-09-21

... NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION [Notice (10-112)] NASA Advisory Council; Planetary Science Subcommittee; Supporting Research and Technology Working Group; Meeting AGENCY: National... announces a meeting of the Supporting Research and Technology Working Group of the Planetary Science...

First Prototype of a Web Map Interface for ESA's Planetary Science Archive (PSA)

Science.gov (United States)

Manaud, N.; Gonzalez, J.

2014-04-01

We present a first prototype of a Web Map Interface that will serve as a proof of concept and design for ESA's future fully web-based Planetary Science Archive (PSA) User Interface. The PSA is ESA's planetary science archiving authority and central repository for all scientific and engineering data returned by ESA's Solar System missions [1]. All data are compliant with NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS) Standards and are accessible through several interfaces [2]: in addition to serving all public data via FTP and the Planetary Data Access Protocol (PDAP), a Java-based User Interface provides advanced search, preview, download, notification and delivery-basket functionality. It allows the user to query and visualise instrument observations footprints using a map-based interface (currently only available for Mars Express HRSC and OMEGA instruments). During the last decade, the planetary mapping science community has increasingly been adopting Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and standards, originally developed for and used in Earth science. There is an ongoing effort to produce and share cartographic products through Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Services, or as standalone data sets, so that they can be readily used in existing GIS applications [3,4,5]. Previous studies conducted at ESAC [6,7] have helped identify the needs of Planetary GIS users, and define key areas of improvement for the future Web PSA User Interface. Its web map interface shall will provide access to the full geospatial content of the PSA, including (1) observation geometry footprints of all remote sensing instruments, and (2) all georeferenced cartographic products, such as HRSC map-projected data or OMEGA global maps from Mars Express. It shall aim to provide a rich user experience for search and visualisation of this content using modern and interactive web mapping technology. A comprehensive set of built-in context maps from external sources, such as MOLA topography, TES

The Early Planetary Research of Tobias C. Owen

Science.gov (United States)

Cruikshank, Dale P.

2017-10-01

Tobias Chant Owen (Toby) was a graduate student of G. P. Kuiper, receiving his Ph.D. in the Dept. of Astronomy, University of Arizona, in 1965. His thesis was broadly titled "Studies of Planetary Spectra in the Photographic Infrared", and primarily presented a study of the composition and other properties of Jupiter, as well as the abundance and surface pressure of CO2 on Mars. The surface pressure on Mars was a topic of debate at that time, with a wide range of diverse observational results from several investigators. The Jupiter work in particular consisted of the analysis of Kuiper's unpublished spectra that were made with photographic plates pushed to the longest wavelength possible, about 1120 nm, with ammonia-hypersensitized Kodak Z emulsions. Toby used the long-pathlength absorption cells at the Lunar and Planetary Lab to study the spectra of CH4 and NH3 at pressures and temperatures relevant to Jupiter (and Saturn), as well as to search for spectral signatures of potential minor components of their atmospheres. Toby also obtained new spectra of Io, Ganymede, and Saturn and its rings, extended to the long-wavelength limit of photographic emulsions. No new molecular absorptions were found, although Owen basically confirmed Kuiper's earlier result that Saturn's rings are covered (or composed of) with H2O ice or frost. As he pursued a broad range of problems of planetary atmospheres, Toby used existing and newly acquired spectra of the planets in the photographic and near-infrared wavelength regions, together with data he obtained in the laboratory with long-pathlength absorption cells, to resolve some outstanding issues of unidentified spectral features and to clarify issues of the compositions, temperatures, and atmospheric pressures of several bodies. This work laid the foundation for his later decades of studies of planetary atmospheres and comets with spacecraft as an active participant in many US and European missions. He was very influential in shaping

The distribution of mass in the planetary system and solar nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Weidenschilling, S.J.

1977-01-01

A model 'solar nebula' is constructed by adding the solar complement of light elements to each planet, using recent models of planetary compositions. Uncertainties in this approach are estimated. The computed surface density varies approximately as rsup(-3/2). Mercury, Mars and the asteroid belt are anomalously low in mass, but processes exist which would preferentially remove matter from these regions. Planetary masses and compositions are generally consistent with a monotonic density distribution in the primordial solar nebula. (Auth.)

Planetary exploration and science recent results and advances

CERN Document Server

Jin, Shuanggen; Ip, Wing-Huen

2014-01-01

This contributed monograph is the first work to present the latest results and findings on the new topic and hot field of planetary exploration and sciences, e.g., lunar surface iron content and mare orientale basalts, Earth's gravity field, Martian radar exploration, crater recognition, ionosphere and astrobiology, Comet ionosphere, exoplanetary atmospheres and planet formation in binaries. By providing detailed theory and examples, this book helps readers to quickly familiarize themselves with the field. In addition, it offers a special section on next-generation planetary exploration, which opens a new landscape for future exploration plans and missions. Prof. Shuanggen Jin works at the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Dr. Nader Haghighipour works at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, USA. Prof. Wing-Huen Ip works at the National Central University, Taiwan.

Upper atmospheric planetary-wave and gravity-wave observations

Science.gov (United States)

Justus, C. G.; Woodrum, A.

1973-01-01

Previously collected data on atmospheric pressure, density, temperature and winds between 25 and 200 km from sources including Meteorological Rocket Network data, ROBIN falling sphere data, grenade release and pitot tube data, meteor winds, chemical release winds, satellite data, and others were analyzed by a daily-difference method, and results on the magnitude of atmospheric perturbations interpreted as gravity waves and planetary waves are presented. Traveling planetary-wave contributions in the 25-85 km range were found to have significant height and latitudinal variation. It was found that observed gravity-wave density perturbations and wind are related to one another in the manner predicted by gravity-wave theory. It was determined that, on the average, gravity-wave energy deposition or reflection occurs at all altitudes except the 55-75 km region of the mesosphere.

MExLab Planetary Geoportal: 3D-access to planetary images and results of spatial data analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Karachevtseva, I.; Garov, A.

2015-10-01

MExLab Planetary Geoportal was developed as Geodesy and Cartography Node which provide access to results of study of celestial bodies such as DEM and orthoimages, as well as basemaps, crater catalogues and derivative products: slope, roughness, crater density (http://cartsrv.mexlab.ru/geoportal). The main feature of designed Geoportal is the ability of spatial queries and access to the contents selecting from the list of available data set (Phobos, Mercury, Moon, including Lunokhod's archive data). Prior version of Geoportal has been developed using Flash technology. Now we are developing new version which will use 3D-API (OpenGL, WebGL) based on shaders not only for standard 3D-functionality, but for 2D-mapping as well. Users can obtain quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the objects in graphical, tabular and 3D-forms. It will bring the advantages of unification of code and speed of processing and provide a number of functional advantages based on GIS-tools such as: - possibility of dynamic raster transform for needed map projection; - effective implementation of the co-registration of planetary images by combining spatial data geometries; - presentation in 3D-form different types of data, including planetary atmospheric measurements, subsurface radar data, ect. The system will be created with a new software architecture, which has a potential for development and flexibility in reconfiguration based on cross platform solution: - an application for the three types of platforms: desktop (Windows, Linux, OSX), web platform (any HTML5 browser), and mobile application (Android, iOS); - a single codebase shared between platforms (using cross compilation for Web); - a new telecommunication solution to connect between modules and external system like PROVIDE WebGIS (http://www.provide-space.eu/progis/). The research leading to these result was partly supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n

Low temperature measurement of the vapor pressures of planetary molecules

Science.gov (United States)

Kraus, George F.

1989-01-01

Interpretation of planetary observations and proper modeling of planetary atmospheres are critically upon accurate laboratory data for the chemical and physical properties of the constitutes of the atmospheres. It is important that these data are taken over the appropriate range of parameters such as temperature, pressure, and composition. Availability of accurate, laboratory data for vapor pressures and equilibrium constants of condensed species at low temperatures is essential for photochemical and cloud models of the atmospheres of the outer planets. In the absence of such data, modelers have no choice but to assume values based on an educated guess. In those cases where higher temperature data are available, a standard procedure is to extrapolate these points to the lower temperatures using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Last summer the vapor pressures of acetylene (C2H2) hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and cyanoacetylene (HC3N) was measured using two different methods. At the higher temperatures 1 torr and 10 torr capacitance manometers were used. To measure very low pressures, a technique was used which is based on the infrared absorption of thin film (TFIR). This summer the vapor pressure of acetylene was measured the TFIR method. The vapor pressure of hydrogen sulfide (H2S) was measured using capacitance manometers. Results for H2O agree with literature data over the common range of temperature. At the lower temperatures the data lie slightly below the values predicted by extrapolation of the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. Thin film infrared (TFIR) data for acetylene lie significantly below the values predicted by extrapolation. It is hoped to bridge the gap between the low end of the CM data and the upper end of the TFIR data in the future using a new spinning rotor gauge.

Radio synthesis observations of planetary nebulae. II. A search for sub-arcsecond structure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Balick, B.; Terzian, Y.

1976-01-01

Observations of 11 planetary nebulae with spatial resolutions from 0''.2 to 2'' at 2695 and 8085 MHz failed to show any very bright structure smaller than about 2''. The observations are shown to be consistent with the present understanding of the temperatures and density distributions thought to typify most planetary nebulae

The planetary data system educational CD-ROM

Science.gov (United States)

Guinness, E. A.; Arvidson, R. E.; Martin, M.; Dueck, S.

1993-01-01

The Planetary Data System (PDS) is producing a special educational CD-ROM that contains samples of PDS datasets and is expected to be released in 1993. The CD-ROM will provide university-level instructors with PDS-compatible materials and information that can be used to construct student problem sets using real datasets. The main purposes of the CD-ROM are to facilitate wide use of planetary data and to introduce a large community to the PDS. To meet these objectives the Educational CD-ROM will also contain software to manipulate the data, background discussions about scientific questions that can be addressed with the data, and a suite of exercises that illustrate analysis techniques. Students will also be introduced to the SPICE concept, which is a new way of maintaining geometry and instrument information. The exercises will be presented at the freshman through graduate student levels. With simplification, some of the material should also be of use at the high school level.

Planetary Missions of the 20th Century*

Science.gov (United States)

Moroz, V. I.; Huntress, W. T.; Shevalev, I. L.

2002-09-01

Among of the highlights of the 20th century were flights of spacecraft to other bodies of the Solar System. This paper describes briefly the missions attempted, their goals, and fate. Information is presented in five tables on the missions launched, their goals, mission designations, dates, discoveries when successful, and what happened if they failed. More detailed explanations are given in the accompanying text. It is shown how this enterprise developed and evolved step by step from a politically driven competition to intense scientific investigations and international cooperation. Initially, only the USA and USSR sent missions to the Moon and planets. Europe and Japan joined later. The USSR carried out significant research in Solar System exploration until the end of the 1980s. The Russian Federation no longer supports robotic planetary exploration for economic reasons, and it remains to be seen whether the invaluable Russian experience in planetary space flight will be lost. Collaboration between Russian and other national space agencies may be a solution.

Cosmic Education: Formation of a Planetary and Cosmic Personality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bazaluk Oleg

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The major stages of development of cosmic pedagogy have been researched. Based on the achievements of the modern neurosciences as well as of psychology, cosmology, and philosophy, the authors provide their reasoning for the cosmic education and its outlooks for the educational systems of the world. Through the studies of how important human mind is for the Earth and the cosmos and by researching the evolution of human mind within the structure of the Universe, the authors create a more advanced scientific and philosophic basis for the cosmic education where the subject is a comprehensive process of formation and directed progress of both an individual mind and a conglomerate of minds called the "psychospace". The cosmic education researches the permanent progress of the intelligent matter of the Earth. The purpose of the cosmic education has been determined as formation of a planetary and cosmic personality. According to the authors, a planetary and cosmic personality is a harmony of mind, soul, and body, and such harmony is directed to use the internal creative potential of mind to the benefit of the intelligent matter of the entire Earth and the cosmos. The properties of such a planetary and cosmic personality are being improved continuously; they are a sample (the ideal of the cosmic pedagogy and the image of a human being of the future. Through the usage of the entire potential and art of upbringing and educating, the cosmic pedagogy is called to embody the major properties of the image of a human being of the future in the new generations of minds and to form a planetary and cosmic personality capable of self-actualization to the benefit of the permanent progress of the intelligent matter.

Collecting, Managing, and Visualizing Data during Planetary Surface Exploration

Science.gov (United States)

Young, K. E.; Graff, T. G.; Bleacher, J. E.; Whelley, P.; Garry, W. B.; Rogers, A. D.; Glotch, T. D.; Coan, D.; Reagan, M.; Evans, C. A.; Garrison, D. H.

2017-12-01

While the Apollo lunar surface missions were highly successful in collecting valuable samples to help us understand the history and evolution of the Moon, technological advancements since 1969 point us toward a new generation of planetary surface exploration characterized by large volumes of data being collected and used to inform traverse execution real-time. Specifically, the advent of field portable technologies mean that future planetary explorers will have vast quantities of in situ geochemical and geophysical data that can be used to inform sample collection and curation as well as strategic and tactical decision making that will impact mission planning real-time. The RIS4E SSERVI (Remote, In Situ and Synchrotron Studies for Science and Exploration; Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Institute) team has been working for several years to deploy a variety of in situ instrumentation in relevant analog environments. RIS4E seeks both to determine ideal instrumentation suites for planetary surface exploration as well as to develop a framework for EVA (extravehicular activity) mission planning that incorporates this new generation of technology. Results from the last several field campaigns will be discussed, as will recommendations for how to rapidly mine in situ datasets for tactical and strategic planning. Initial thoughts about autonomy in mining field data will also be presented. The NASA Extreme Environments Mission Operations (NEEMO) missions focus on a combination of Science, Science Operations, and Technology objectives in a planetary analog environment. Recently, the increase of high-fidelity marine science objectives during NEEMO EVAs have led to the ability to evaluate how real-time data collection and visualization can influence tactical and strategic planning for traverse execution and mission planning. Results of the last few NEEMO missions will be discussed in the context of data visualization strategies for real-time operations.

Considerations in the Design of Future Planetary Laser Altimeters

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, D. E.; Neumann, G. A.; Mazarico, E.; Zuber, M. T.; Sun, X.

2017-12-01

Planetary laser altimeters have generally been designed to provide high accuracy measurements of the nadir range to an uncooperative surface for deriving the shape of the target body, and sometimes specifically for identifying and characterizing potential landing sites. However, experience has shown that in addition to the range measurement, other valuable observations can be acquired, including surface reflectance and surface roughness, despite not being given high priority in the original altimeter design or even anticipated. After nearly 2 decades of planetary laser altimeter design, the requirements are evolving and additional capabilities are becoming equally important. The target bodies, once the terrestrial planets, are now equally asteroids and moons that in many cases do not permit simple orbital operations due to their small mass, radiation issues, or spacecraft fuel limitations. In addition, for a number of reasons, it has become necessary to perform shape determination from a much greater range, even thousands of kilometers, and thus ranging is becoming as important as nadir altimetry. Reflectance measurements have also proved important for assessing the presence of ice, water or CO2, and laser pulse spreading informed knowledge of surface roughness; all indicating a need for improved instrument capability. Recently, the need to obtain accurate range measurement to laser reflectors on landers or on a planetary surface is presenting new science opportunities but for which current designs are far from optimal. These changes to classic laser altimetry have consequences for many instrument functions and capabilities, including beam divergence, laser power, number of beams and detectors, pixelation, energy measurements, pointing stability, polarization, laser wavelengths, and laser pulse rate dependent range. We will discuss how a new consideration of these trades will help make lidars key instruments to execute innovative science in future planetary

Lunar and Planetary Geology

Science.gov (United States)

Basilevsky, Alexander T.

2018-05-01

Lunar and planetary geology can be described using examples such as the geology of Earth (as the reference case) and geologies of the Earth's satellite the Moon; the planets Mercury, Mars and Venus; the satellite of Saturn Enceladus; the small stony asteroid Eros; and the nucleus of the comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Each body considered is illustrated by its global view, with information given as to its position in the solar system, size, surface, environment including gravity acceleration and properties of its atmosphere if it is present, typical landforms and processes forming them, materials composing these landforms, information on internal structure of the body, stages of its geologic evolution in the form of stratigraphic scale, and estimates of the absolute ages of the stratigraphic units. Information about one body may be applied to another body and this, in particular, has led to the discovery of the existence of heavy "meteoritic" bombardment in the early history of the solar system, which should also significantly affect Earth. It has been shown that volcanism and large-scale tectonics may have not only been an internal source of energy in the form of radiogenic decay of potassium, uranium and thorium, but also an external source in the form of gravity tugging caused by attractions of the neighboring bodies. The knowledge gained by lunar and planetary geology is important for planning and managing space missions and for the practical exploration of other bodies of the solar system and establishing manned outposts on them.

An apodized Kepler periodogram for separating planetary and stellar activity signals

Science.gov (United States)

Gregory, Philip C.

2016-01-01

A new apodized Keplerian (AK) model is proposed for the analysis of precision radial velocity (RV) data to model both planetary and stellar activity (SA) induced RV signals. A symmetrical Gaussian apodization function with unknown width and centre can distinguish planetary signals from SA signals on the basis of the span of the apodization window. The general model for m AK signals includes a linear regression term between RV and the SA diagnostic log (R′hk), as well as an extra Gaussian noise term with unknown standard deviation. The model parameters are explored using a Bayesian fusion Markov chain Monte Carlo code. A differential version of the generalized Lomb–Scargle periodogram that employs a control diagnostic provides an additional way of distinguishing SA signals and helps guide the choice of new periods. Results are reported for a recent international RV blind challenge which included multiple state-of-the-art simulated data sets supported by a variety of SA diagnostics. In the current implementation, the AK method achieved a reduction in SA noise by a factor of approximately 6. Final parameter estimates for the planetary candidates are derived from fits that include AK signals to model the SA components and simple Keplerians to model the planetary candidates. Preliminary results are also reported for AK models augmented by a moving average component that allows for correlations in the residuals. PMID:27346979

Magnetism, planetary rotation and convection in the solar system

CERN Document Server

1985-01-01

On the 6th, 7th' and 8th April 1983, a conference entitled "Magnetism, planetary rotation and convection in the Solar System" was held in the School of Physics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The purpose of the meeting was to celebrate the 60th birthday of Prof. Stanley Keith Runcorn and his, and his students' and associates', several decades of scientific achievement. The social programme, which consisted of excursions in Northumberland and Durham with visits to ancient castles and churches, to Hexham Abbey and Durham Cathedral, and dinners in Newcastle and Durham, was greatly enjoyed by those attending the meeting and by their guests. The success ofthe scientific programme can be judged by this special edition of Geophysical Surveys which is derived mainly from the papers given at the meeting. The story starts in the late 1940s when the question of the origin of the magnetic field of the Earth and such other heavenly bodies as had at that time been discovered as having a magnetic field, was exerci...

THE LINK BETWEEN PLANETARY SYSTEMS, DUSTY WHITE DWARFS, AND METAL-POLLUTED WHITE DWARFS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Debes, John H.; Walsh, Kevin J.; Stark, Christopher

2012-01-01

It has long been suspected that metal-polluted white dwarfs (types DAZ, DBZ, and DZ) and white dwarfs with dusty disks possess planetary systems, but a specific physical mechanism by which planetesimals are perturbed close to a white dwarf has not yet been fully posited. In this paper, we demonstrate that mass loss from a central star during post-main-sequence evolution can sweep planetesimals into interior mean motion resonances with a single giant planet. These planetesimals are slowly removed through chaotic excursions of eccentricity that in time create radial orbits capable of tidally disrupting the planetesimal. Numerical N-body simulations of the solar system show that a sufficient number of planetesimals are perturbed to explain white dwarfs with both dust and metal pollution, provided other white dwarfs have more massive relic asteroid belts. Our scenario requires only one Jupiter-sized planet and a sufficient number of asteroids near its 2:1 interior mean motion resonance. Finally, we show that once a planetesimal is perturbed into a tidal crossing orbit, it will become disrupted after the first pass of the white dwarf, where a highly eccentric stream of debris forms the main reservoir for dust-producing collisions. These simulations, in concert with observations of white dwarfs, place interesting limits on the frequency of planetary systems around main-sequence stars, the frequency of planetesimal belts, and the probability that dust may obscure future terrestrial planet finding missions.

Assessing planetary and regional nitrogen boundaries related to food security and adverse environmental impacts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vries, de W.; Kros, J.; Kroeze, C.; Seitzinger, S.P.

2013-01-01

This paper first describes the concept of, governance interest in, and criticism on planetary boundaries, specifically with respect to the nitrogen (N) cycle. These criticisms are then systematically evaluated. We argue that planetary N boundaries should include both the benefits and adverse impacts

Stream Lifetimes Against Planetary Encounters

Science.gov (United States)

Valsecchi, G. B.; Lega, E.; Froeschle, Cl.

2011-01-01

We study, both analytically and numerically, the perturbation induced by an encounter with a planet on a meteoroid stream. Our analytical tool is the extension of pik s theory of close encounters, that we apply to streams described by geocentric variables. The resulting formulae are used to compute the rate at which a stream is dispersed by planetary encounters into the sporadic background. We have verified the accuracy of the analytical model using a numerical test.

Challenges in implementing a Planetary Boundaries based Life-Cycle Impact Assessment methodology

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ryberg, Morten; Owsianiak, Mikolaj; Richardson, Katherine

2016-01-01

of resolving the challenges and developing such methodology is discussed. The challenges are related to technical issues, i.e., modelling and including the Earth System processes and their control variables as impact categories in Life-Cycle Impact Assessment and to theoretical considerations with respect...... to the interpretation and use of Life-Cycle Assessment results in accordance with the Planetary Boundary framework. The identified challenges require additional research before a Planetary Boundaries based Life-Cycle Impact Assessment method can be developed. Research on modelling the impacts on Earth System processes......Impacts on the environment from human activities are now threatening to exceed thresholds for central Earth System processes, potentially moving the Earth System out of the Holocene state. To avoid such consequences, the concept of Planetary Boundaries was defined in 2009, and updated in 2015...

Probing Shocks of the Young Planetary Nebula NGC 7027

Science.gov (United States)

Montez, Rodolfo

2013-09-01

The rapid evolution of the planetary nebula NGC 7027 provides a rare glimpse at the evolution of the shocks. We propose a detailed spatial and spectroscopic study of the shock conditions in NGC 7027 that will enhance and bridge our understanding of the shocks seen in other planetary nebula. Comparison between the Cycle 1 observation and a new Cycle 15 observation will (i) confirm the presence of the two components in the extended X-ray emission, (ii) measure the changes (spatial and spectral) in the components, and, (iii) provide a valuable trove of tests and inputs for shock conditions and hydrodynamical simulations. We rely on the unprecedented spatial resolution and soft-sensitivity of Chandra.

The Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) and its integration into the Virtual European Solar and Planetary Access (VESPA)

Science.gov (United States)

Hueso, R.; Juaristi, J.; Legarreta, J.; Sánchez-Lavega, A.; Rojas, J. F.; Erard, S.; Cecconi, B.; Le Sidaner, Pierre

2018-01-01

Since 2003 the Planetary Virtual Observatory and Laboratory (PVOL) has been storing and serving publicly through its web site a large database of amateur observations of the Giant Planets (Hueso et al., 2010a). These images are used for scientific research of the atmospheric dynamics and cloud structure on these planets and constitute a powerful resource to address time variable phenomena in their atmospheres. Advances over the last decade in observation techniques, and a wider recognition by professional astronomers of the quality of amateur observations, have resulted in the need to upgrade this database. We here present major advances in the PVOL database, which has evolved into a full virtual planetary observatory encompassing also observations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Moon and the Galilean satellites. Besides the new objects, the images can be tagged and the database allows simple and complex searches over the data. The new web service: PVOL2 is available online in http://pvol2.ehu.eus/.

Transiting planetary system WASP-17 (Southworth+, 2012)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Southworth, J.; Hinse, T. C.; Dominik, M.

2013-01-01

A light curve of four transits of the extrasolar planetary system WASP-17 is presented. The data were obtained using the Danish 1.5m telescope and DFOSC camera at ESO La Silla in 2012, with substantial telescope defocussing in order to improve the photometric precision of the observations...

A second list of new planetary nebulae found on United Kingdom 1.2-m Schmidt telescope plates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Longmore, A.J.; Tritton, S.B.

1980-01-01

Positions, photographs and descriptions are given for 11 new planetary nebulae discovered on United Kingdom Schmidt plates. One of the planetary nebulae has the highest galactic latitude of any known planetary, and may be associated with a magnitude 9 G5 star. Near-infrared (J,H,K) magnitudes are given for the star. (author)

Advanced Calibration Source for Planetary and Earth Observing Imaging

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Planetary and Earth imaging requires radiometrically calibrated and stable imaging sensors.  Radiometric calibration enables the ability to remove or mitigate...

Planetary Ions at Mercury: Unanswered Questions After MESSENGER

Science.gov (United States)

Raines, J. M.

2018-05-01

We will discuss the key open questions relating to planetary ions, including the behavior of recently created photoions, the near absence of Ca+ / K+ in MESSENGER ion measurements, and the role of ion sputtering in the system.

Cathodoluminescence and its application in the planetary sciences

CERN Document Server

Gucsik, Arnold

2009-01-01

This book provides an overview of cathodoluminescence properties of the planetary materials. It provides a unique introduction to cathodoluminescence which is widely used in the geosciences, because it is a non-destructive and "easy to use" method.

Public Outreach with NASA Lunar and Planetary Mapping and Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Law, E.; Day, B.

2017-09-01

NASA's Trek family of online portals is an exceptional collection of resources making it easy for students and the public to explore surfaces of planetary bodies using real data from real missions. Exotic landforms on other worlds and our plans to explore them provide inspiring context for science and technology lessons in classrooms, museums, and at home. These portals can be of great value to formal and informal educators, as well as to scientists working to share the excitement of the latest developments in planetary science, and can significantly enhance visibility and public engagement in missions of exploration.

Radiation protection for human interplanetary spaceflight and planetary surface operations

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Clark, B.C. [Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Inst., Bethesda, MD (United States)]|[DLR Inst. of Aerospace Medicine, Cologne (Germany)]|[NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD (United States)

1993-12-31

Radiation protection issues are reviewed for five categories of radiation exposure during human missions to the moon and Mars: trapped radiation belts, galactic cosmic rays, solar flare particle events, planetary surface emissions, and on-board radiation sources. Relative hazards are dependent upon spacecraft and vehicle configurations, flight trajectories, human susceptibility, shielding effectiveness, monitoring and warning systems, and other factors. Crew cabins, interplanetary mission modules, surface habitats, planetary rovers, and extravehicular mobility units (spacesuits) provide various degrees of protection. Countermeasures that may be taken are reviewed relative to added complexity and risks that they could entail, with suggestions for future research and analysis.

Research of Planetary Gear Fault Diagnosis Based on Permutation Entropy of CEEMDAN and ANFIS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moshen Kuai

2018-03-01

Full Text Available For planetary gear has the characteristics of small volume, light weight and large transmission ratio, it is widely used in high speed and high power mechanical system. Poor working conditions result in frequent failures of planetary gear. A method is proposed for diagnosing faults in planetary gear based on permutation entropy of Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS in this paper. The original signal is decomposed into 6 intrinsic mode functions (IMF and residual components by CEEMDAN. Since the IMF contains the main characteristic information of planetary gear faults, time complexity of IMFs are reflected by permutation entropies to quantify the fault features. The permutation entropies of each IMF component are defined as the input of ANFIS, and its parameters and membership functions are adaptively adjusted according to training samples. Finally, the fuzzy inference rules are determined, and the optimal ANFIS is obtained. The overall recognition rate of the test sample used for ANFIS is 90%, and the recognition rate of gear with one missing tooth is relatively high. The recognition rates of different fault gears based on the method can also achieve better results. Therefore, the proposed method can be applied to planetary gear fault diagnosis effectively.

Research of Planetary Gear Fault Diagnosis Based on Permutation Entropy of CEEMDAN and ANFIS.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuai, Moshen; Cheng, Gang; Pang, Yusong; Li, Yong

2018-03-05

For planetary gear has the characteristics of small volume, light weight and large transmission ratio, it is widely used in high speed and high power mechanical system. Poor working conditions result in frequent failures of planetary gear. A method is proposed for diagnosing faults in planetary gear based on permutation entropy of Complete Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN) Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) in this paper. The original signal is decomposed into 6 intrinsic mode functions (IMF) and residual components by CEEMDAN. Since the IMF contains the main characteristic information of planetary gear faults, time complexity of IMFs are reflected by permutation entropies to quantify the fault features. The permutation entropies of each IMF component are defined as the input of ANFIS, and its parameters and membership functions are adaptively adjusted according to training samples. Finally, the fuzzy inference rules are determined, and the optimal ANFIS is obtained. The overall recognition rate of the test sample used for ANFIS is 90%, and the recognition rate of gear with one missing tooth is relatively high. The recognition rates of different fault gears based on the method can also achieve better results. Therefore, the proposed method can be applied to planetary gear fault diagnosis effectively.

McDonald Observatory Planetary Search - A high precision stellar radial velocity survey for other planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Cochran, William D.; Hatzes, Artie P.

1993-01-01

The McDonald Observatory Planetary Search program surveyed a sample of 33 nearby F, G, and K stars since September 1987 to search for substellar companion objects. Measurements of stellar radial velocity variations to a precision of better than 10 m/s were performed as routine observations to detect Jovian planets in orbit around solar type stars. Results confirm the detection of a companion object to HD114762.

Highly Efficient Compact Laser for Planetary Exploration, Phase I

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — In response to the solicitation for advances in critical components of instruments for enhanced scientific investigations on future planetary mission, Q-Peak...

Planetary sciences and exploration: An Indian perspective

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Studies of impact craters records in the Indian shield have also been pursued and led to ... and emission of X-rays from planets as well as analytical modelling of martian ionosphere and ... Meteorite; moon; solar activity; solar system; martian atmosphere; planetary .... face layers of any meteorite reaching the earth, one.

INPOP17a planetary ephemerides

Science.gov (United States)

Viswanathan, V.; Fienga, A.; Gastineau, M.; Laskar, J.

2017-08-01

Based on the use of Cassini radio tracking data and the introduction of LLR data obtained at 1064 nm, a new planetary ephemerides INPOP17a was built including improvements for the planet orbits as well as for Moon ephemerides. Besides new asteroid masses, new parameters related to the inner structure of the Moon were obtained and presented here. Comparisons with values found in the literature are also discussed. LLR Residuals reach the centimeter level for the new INPOP17a ephemerides.

Terahertz heterodyne technology for astronomy and planetary science

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wild, Wolfgang

2007-01-01

Heterodyne detection techniques play an important role in high-resolution spectroscopy in astronomy and planetary science. In particular, heterodyne technology in the Terahertz range has rapidly evolved in recent years. Cryogenically cooled receivers approaching quantum-limited sensitivity have been

Adaptive bio-inspired navigation for planetary exploration, Phase II

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Exploration of planetary environments with current robotic technologies relies on human control and power-hungry active sensors to perform even the most elementary...

In-situ Planetary Subsurface Imaging System

Science.gov (United States)

Song, W.; Weber, R. C.; Dimech, J. L.; Kedar, S.; Neal, C. R.; Siegler, M.

2017-12-01

Geophysical and seismic instruments are considered the most effective tools for studying the detailed global structures of planetary interiors. A planet's interior bears the geochemical markers of its evolutionary history, as well as its present state of activity, which has direct implications to habitability. On Earth, subsurface imaging often involves massive data collection from hundreds to thousands of geophysical sensors (seismic, acoustic, etc) followed by transfer by hard links or wirelessly to a central location for post processing and computing, which will not be possible in planetary environments due to imposed mission constraints on mass, power, and bandwidth. Emerging opportunities for geophysical exploration of the solar system from Venus to the icy Ocean Worlds of Jupiter and Saturn dictate that subsurface imaging of the deep interior will require substantial data reduction and processing in-situ. The Real-time In-situ Subsurface Imaging (RISI) technology is a mesh network that senses and processes geophysical signals. Instead of data collection then post processing, the mesh network performs the distributed data processing and computing in-situ, and generates an evolving 3D subsurface image in real-time that can be transmitted under bandwidth and resource constraints. Seismic imaging algorithms (including traveltime tomography, ambient noise imaging, and microseismic imaging) have been successfully developed and validated using both synthetic and real-world terrestrial seismic data sets. The prototype hardware system has been implemented and can be extended as a general field instrumentation platform tailored specifically for a wide variety of planetary uses, including crustal mapping, ice and ocean structure, and geothermal systems. The team is applying the RISI technology to real off-world seismic datasets. For example, the Lunar Seismic Profiling Experiment (LSPE) deployed during the Apollo 17 Moon mission consisted of four geophone instruments

Frequency analysis of a two-stage planetary gearbox using two different methodologies

Science.gov (United States)

Feki, Nabih; Karray, Maha; Khabou, Mohamed Tawfik; Chaari, Fakher; Haddar, Mohamed

2017-12-01

This paper is focused on the characterization of the frequency content of vibration signals issued from a two-stage planetary gearbox. To achieve this goal, two different methodologies are adopted: the lumped-parameter modeling approach and the phenomenological modeling approach. The two methodologies aim to describe the complex vibrations generated by a two-stage planetary gearbox. The phenomenological model describes directly the vibrations as measured by a sensor fixed outside the fixed ring gear with respect to an inertial reference frame, while results from a lumped-parameter model are referenced with respect to a rotating frame and then transferred into an inertial reference frame. Two different case studies of the two-stage planetary gear are adopted to describe the vibration and the corresponding spectra using both models. Each case presents a specific geometry and a specific spectral structure.

A review of the scientific rationale and methods used in the search for other planetary systems

Science.gov (United States)

Black, D. C.

1985-01-01

Planetary systems appear to be one of the crucial links in the chain leading from simple molecules to living systems, particularly complex (intelligent?) living systems. Although there is currently no observational proof of the existence of any planetary system other than our own, techniques are now being developed which will permit a comprehensive search for other planetary systems. The scientific rationale for and methods used in such a search effort are reviewed here.

Planetary and Space Simulation Facilities PSI at DLR for Astrobiology

Science.gov (United States)

Rabbow, E.; Rettberg, P.; Panitz, C.; Reitz, G.

2008-09-01

Ground based experiments, conducted in the controlled planetary and space environment simulation facilities PSI at DLR, are used to investigate astrobiological questions and to complement the corresponding experiments in LEO, for example on free flying satellites or on space exposure platforms on the ISS. In-orbit exposure facilities can only accommodate a limited number of experiments for exposure to space parameters like high vacuum, intense radiation of galactic and solar origin and microgravity, sometimes also technically adapted to simulate extraterrestrial planetary conditions like those on Mars. Ground based experiments in carefully equipped and monitored simulation facilities allow the investigation of the effects of simulated single environmental parameters and selected combinations on a much wider variety of samples. In PSI at DLR, international science consortia performed astrobiological investigations and space experiment preparations, exposing organic compounds and a wide range of microorganisms, reaching from bacterial spores to complex microbial communities, lichens and even animals like tardigrades to simulated planetary or space environment parameters in pursuit of exobiological questions on the resistance to extreme environments and the origin and distribution of life. The Planetary and Space Simulation Facilities PSI of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine at DLR in Köln, Germany, providing high vacuum of controlled residual composition, ionizing radiation of a X-ray tube, polychromatic UV radiation in the range of 170-400 nm, VIS and IR or individual monochromatic UV wavelengths, and temperature regulation from -20°C to +80°C at the sample size individually or in selected combinations in 9 modular facilities of varying sizes are presented with selected experiments performed within.

DPS Planetary Science Graduate Programs Database for Students and Advisors

Science.gov (United States)

Klassen, David R.; Roman, Anthony; Meinke, Bonnie K.

2017-10-01

Planetary science is a topic that covers an extremely diverse set of disciplines; planetary scientists are typically housed in a departments spanning a wide range of disciplines. As such it is difficult for undergraduate students to find programs that will give them a degree and research experience in our field as Department of Planetary Science is a rare sighting, indeed. Not only can this overwhelm even the most determined student, it can even be difficult for many undergraduate advisers.Because of this, the DPS Education committee decided several years ago that it should have an online resource that could help undergraduate students find graduate programs that could lead to a PhD with a focus in planetary science. It began in 2013 as a static page of information and evolved from there to a database-driven web site. Visitors can browse the entire list of programs or create a subset listing based on several filters. The site should be of use not only to undergraduates looking for programs, but also for advisers looking to help their students decide on their future plans. We present here a walk-through of the basic features as well as some usage statistics from the collected web site analytics. We ask for community feedback on additional features to make the system more usable for them. We also call upon those mentoring and advising undergraduates to use this resource, and for program admission chairs to continue to review their entry and provide us with the most up-to-date information.The URL for our site is http://dps.aas.org/education/graduate-schools.

On Some General Regularities of Formation of the Planetary Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Belyakov A. V.

2014-01-01

Full Text Available J.Wheeler’s geometrodynamic concept has been used, in which space continuum is considered as a topologically non-unitary coherent surface admitting the existence of transitions of the input-output kind between distant regions of the space in an additional dimension. This model assumes the existence of closed structures (micro- and macro- contours formed due to the balance between main interactions: gravitational, electric, magnetic, and inertial forces. It is such macrocontours that have been demonstrated to form — independently of their material basis — the essential structure of objects at various levels of organization of matter. On the basis of this concept in this paper basic regularities acting during formation planetary systems have been obtained. The existence of two sharply different types of planetary systems has been determined. The dependencies linking the masses of the planets, the diameters of the planets, the orbital radii of the planet, and the mass of the central body have been deduced. The possibility of formation of Earth-like planets near brown dwarfs has been grounded. The minimum mass of the planet, which may arise in the planetary system, has been defined.

Wake of a blunt planetary probe model under hypervelocity conditions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kastell, D.; Hannemann, D.; Eitelberg, G. [DLR Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Goettingen (Germany). Inst. fuer Stroemungsmechanik

1998-12-31

The flow in the wake of a planetary probe under hypervelocity re-entry conditions has two idiosyncrasies not present in the conventional (cold) hypersonic flows: the strong dissociation reaction occurring behind the bow shock wave, and the freezing of the chemical reactions of the flow by the rapid expansion at the shoulder of the probe. The aim of the present study was to both understand the relative importance of the two phenomena upon the total heat and pressure loads on a planetary probe and its possible payload as well as to provide experimental validation data for those developing numerical codes for planetary probe design and analysis. For the experimental study an instrumented blunted 140 cone was tested in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel in Goettingen (HEG). The numerical calculations were performed with a Thin-Layer Navier-Stokes code which is capable of simulating chemical and thermal nonequilibrium flows. For the forebody loads the prediction methods were very reliable and capable of accounting for the kinetic effects caused by the high specific enthalpy of the flow. On the other side considerable discrepancies between experimental and numerical results for the wake of the model have been observed. (orig.)

Wake of a blunt planetary probe model under hypervelocity conditions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kastell, D.; Hannemann, D.; Eitelberg, G. (DLR Deutsches Zentrum fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V., Goettingen (Germany). Inst. fuer Stroemungsmechanik)

1998-01-01

The flow in the wake of a planetary probe under hypervelocity re-entry conditions has two idiosyncrasies not present in the conventional (cold) hypersonic flows: the strong dissociation reaction occurring behind the bow shock wave, and the freezing of the chemical reactions of the flow by the rapid expansion at the shoulder of the probe. The aim of the present study was to both understand the relative importance of the two phenomena upon the total heat and pressure loads on a planetary probe and its possible payload as well as to provide experimental validation data for those developing numerical codes for planetary probe design and analysis. For the experimental study an instrumented blunted 140 cone was tested in the High Enthalpy Shock Tunnel in Goettingen (HEG). The numerical calculations were performed with a Thin-Layer Navier-Stokes code which is capable of simulating chemical and thermal nonequilibrium flows. For the forebody loads the prediction methods were very reliable and capable of accounting for the kinetic effects caused by the high specific enthalpy of the flow. On the other side considerable discrepancies between experimental and numerical results for the wake of the model have been observed. (orig.)

Planetary Mission Entry Vehicles Quick Reference Guide. Version 3.0

Science.gov (United States)

Davies, Carol; Arcadi, Marla

2006-01-01

This is Version 3.0 of the planetary mission entry vehicle document. Three new missions, Re-entry F, Hayabusa, and ARD have been added to t he previously published edition (Version 2.1). In addition, the Huyge ns mission has been significantly updated and some Apollo data correc ted. Due to the changing nature of planetary vehicles during the desi gn, manufacture and mission phases, and to the variables involved in measurement and computation, please be aware that the data provided h erein cannot be guaranteed. Contact Carol Davies at cdavies@mail.arc. nasa.gov to correct or update the current data, or to suggest other missions.

Continental Ice Sheets and the Planetary Radiation Budget

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oerlemans, J.

1980-01-01

The interaction between continental ice sheets and the planetary radiation budget is potentially important in climate-sensitivity studies. A simple ice-sheet model incorporated in an energybalance climate model provides a tool for studying this interaction in a quantitative way. Experiments in which

Risk to civilization: A planetary science perspective

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chapman, C.R.; Morrison, D.

1988-01-01

One of the most profound changes in our perspective of the solar system resulting from the first quarter century of planetary exploration by spacecraft is the recognition that planets, including Earth, were bombarded by cosmic projectiles for 4.5 aeons and continue to be bombarded today. Although the planetary cratering rate is much lower now than it was during the first 0.5 aeons, sizeable Earth-approaching asteroids and comets continue to hit the Earth at a rate that poses a finite risk to civilization. The evolution of this planetary perspective on impact cratering is gradual over the last two decades. It took explorations of Mars and Mercury by early Mariner spacecraft and of the outer solar system by the Voyagers to reveal the significance of asteroidal and cometary impacts in shaping the morphologies and even chemical compositions of the planets. An unsettling implication of the new perspective is addressed: the risk to human civilization. Serious scientific attention was given to this issue in July 1981 at a NASA-sponsored Spacewatch Workshop in Snowmass, Colorado. The basic conclusion of the 1981 NASA sponsored workshop still stands: the risk that civilization might be destroyed by impact with an as-yet-undiscovered asteroid or comet exceeds risk levels that are sometimes deemed unacceptable by modern societies in other contexts. Yet these impact risks have gone almost undiscussed and undebated. The tentative quantitative assessment by some members of the 1981 workshop was that each year, civilization is threatened with destruction with a probability of about 1 in 100,000. The enormous spread in risk levels deemed by the public to be at the threshold of acceptability derives from a host of psychological factors that were widely discussed in the risk assessment literature

Circumstellar Gas in Young Planetary Debris Disks

Science.gov (United States)

Roberge, A.

Circumstellar (CS) disks orbiting young stars fall into two categories: primordial disks, composed of unprocessed interstellar dust and gas, and debris disks, produced by the destruction of solid planetary bodies. In the first class, the most abundant gas is H_2; in the second, it appears that the H_2 gas has disappeared, possibly through incorporation into gas giant planets. The lifetime of H_2 gas in a CS disk is therefore of great importance, as it dictates the timescale for the formation of giant planets. FUSE observations of H_2 in CS disk systems have shown that FUV absorption spectroscopy may sensitively probe for small amounts of gas along the line of sight to the star. Most importantly, the FUSE non-detection of H_2 gas in the Beta Pictoris disk suggests that the primordial gas lifetime is less than about 12 Myr, and that gas giant planets must form very quickly. However, this suggestion is based on one system, and needs to be tested in additional systems with a range of ages, especially since there are indications that age is not the only factor in the evolution of a CS disk. We propose for FUSE observations of 3 additional debris disk systems, Fomalhaut, HD3003, and HD2884. Fomalhaut is an intermediate age debris disk, one of the Fabulous Four CS disks first discovered in 1984. The other two disks are younger, with ages similar to that of Beta Pic. All three stars are brighter in the FUV than Beta Pic, permitting us to sensitively probe for traces of H_2 gas. We will also measure the amount of secondary atomic gas produced from planetary bodies in these disks, in an effort to understand the entire evolution of CS gas in young planetary systems.

Allowed planetary orbits in the solar system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pintr, P.; Perinova, V.; Luks, A.

2008-01-01

A new law of the Titius-Bode type for planetary distances from the Sun is proposed. These distances for each planet are determined using appropriate nodal circle of a vibrating membrane. Regularities in the distribution of bodies in the solar system and in the systems of giant planets and some exoplanets are pointed out

Galileo Avionica's technologies and instruments for planetary exploration.

Science.gov (United States)

Battistelli, E; Falciani, P; Magnani, P; Midollini, B; Preti, G; Re, E

2006-12-01

Several missions for planetary exploration, including comets and asteroids, are ongoing or planned by the European Space Agencies: Rosetta, Venus Express, Bepi Colombo, Dawn, Aurora and all Mars Programme (in its past and next missions) are good examples. The satisfaction of the scientific request for the mentioned programmes calls for the development of new instruments and facilities devoted to investigate the body (planet, asteroid or comet) both remotely and by in situ measurements. The paper is an overview of some instruments for remote sensing and in situ planetary exploration already developed or under study by Galileo Avionica Space & Electro-Optics B.U. (in the following shortened as Galileo Avionica) for both the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and for the European Space Agency (ESA). Main technologies and specifications are outlined; for more detailed information please refer to Galileo Avionica's web-site at: http://www.galileoavionica.com .

Planetary Nebulae and How to Observe Them

CERN Document Server

Griffiths, Martin

2012-01-01

Astronomers' Observing Guides provide up-to-date information for amateur astronomers who want to know all about what is it they are observing. This is the basis of the first part of the book. The second part details observing techniques for practical astronomers, working with a range of different instruments. Planetary Nebulae and How to Observe Them is intended for amateur astronomers who want to concentrate on one of the most beautiful classes of astronomical objects in the sky. This book will help the observer to see these celestial phenomena using telescopes of various apertures. As a Sun-like star reaches the end of its life, its hydrogen fuel starts to run out. It collapses until helium nuclei begin nuclear fusion, whereupon the star begins to pulsate, each pulsation throwing off a layer of the star's atmosphere. Eventually the atmosphere has all been ejected as an expanding cloud of gas, the star's core is exposed and ultraviolet photons cause the shell of gas to glow brilliantly - that's planetary ...

The problem of scale in planetary geomorphology

Science.gov (United States)

Rossbacher, L. A.

1985-01-01

Recent planetary exploration has shown that specific landforms exhibit a significant range in size between planets. Similar features on Earth and Mars offer some of the best examples of this scale difference. The difference in heights of volcanic features between the two planets has been cited often; the Martian volcano Olympus Mons stands approximately 26 km high, but Mauna Loa rises only 11 km above the Pacific Ocean floor. Polygonally fractured ground in the northern plains of Mars has diameters up to 20 km across; the largest terrestrial polygons are only 500 m in diameter. Mars also has landslides, aeolian features, and apparent rift valleys larger than any known on Earth. No single factor can explain the variations in landform size between planets. Controls on variation on Earth, related to climate, lithology, or elevation, have seldom been considered in detail. The size differences between features on Earth and other planets seem to be caused by a complex group of interacting relationships. The major planetary parameters that may affect landform size are discussed.

Selecting and implementing scientific objectives. [for Voyager 1 and 2 planetary encounters

Science.gov (United States)

Miner, E. D.; Stembridge, C. H.; Doms, P. E.

1985-01-01

The procedures used to select and implement scientific objectives for the Voyager 1 and 2 planetary encounters are described. Attention is given to the scientific tradeoffs and engineering considerations must be addressed at various stages in the mission planning process, including: the limitations of ground and spacecraft communications systems, ageing of instruments in flight, and instrument calibration over long distances. The contribution of planetary science workshops to the definition of scientific objectives for deep space missions is emphasized.

Identification of faint central stars in extended, low-surface-brightness planetary nebulae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kwitter, K.B.; Lydon, T.J.; Jacoby, G.H.

1988-01-01

As part of a larger program to study the properties of planetary nebula central stars, a search for faint central stars in extended, low-surface-brightness planetary nebulae using CCD imaging is performed. Of 25 target nebulae, central star candidates have been identified in 17, with certainties ranging from extremely probable to possible. Observed V values in the central star candidates extend to fainter than 23 mag. The identifications are presented along with the resulting photometric measurements. 24 references

Spatio-kinematic modelling: Testing the link between planetary nebulae and close binaries

OpenAIRE

Jones, David; Tyndall, Amy A.; Huckvale, Leo; Prouse, Barnabas; Lloyd, Myfanwy

2011-01-01

It is widely believed that central star binarity plays an important role in the formation and evolution of aspherical planetary nebulae, however observational support for this hypothesis is lacking. Here, we present the most recent results of a continuing programme to model the morphologies of all planetary nebulae known to host a close binary central star. Initially, this programme allows us to compare the inclination of the nebular symmetry axis to that of the binary plane, testing the theo...