Related papers: Uranus and Neptune: Shape and Rotation
The planets Uranus and Neptune with small apparent diameters are primary calibration standards. We investigate their variability at ~90 GHz using archived data taken at the IRAM 30m telescope during the 20 years period 1985 to 2005. We…
Neptune's tropospheric winds are among the most intense in the Solar System, but the dynamical mechanisms that produce them remain uncertain. Measuring wind speeds at different pressure levels may help understand the atmospheric dynamics of…
The interior composition and structure of Uranus are ambiguous. It is unclear whether Uranus is composed of fully differentiated layers dominated by an icy mantle or has smooth compositional gradients. The Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP),…
Three-dimensional numerical simulations show that large-scale latent heating resulting from condensation of water vapor can produce multiple zonal jets similar to those on the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and ice giants (Uranus and…
In the Nice model of solar system formation, Uranus and Neptune undergo an orbital upheaval, sweeping through a planetesimal disk. The region of the disk from which material is accreted by the ice giants during this phase of their evolution…
In this paper, we investigate whether Uranus's 98$^{\circ}$ obliquity was a by-product of a secular spin-orbit resonance assuming that the planet originated closer to the Sun. In this position, Uranus's spin precession frequency is fast…
Fundamental properties of the planet Venus, such as its internal mass distribution and variations in length of day, have remained unknown. We used Earth-based observations of radar speckles tied to the rotation of Venus obtained in…
Using near-infrared observations of Neptune from the Keck and Lick Observatories, and the Hubble Space Telescope in combination with amateur datasets, we calculated the drift rates of prominent infrared-bright cloud features on Neptune…
The origin of Uranus and Neptune remains a challenge for planet formation models. A potential explanation is that the planets formed from a population of a few planetary embryos with masses of a few Earth masses which formed beyond Saturn's…
We have detected a strong limb polarization for Uranus and Neptune. With spectropolarimetric observations we characterize the spectral dependence of this limb polarization and explore the diagnostic potential for investigating the…
In this work we study in a general view slow rotating planets as Venus or Titan which present superrotating winds in their atmospheres. We are interested in understanding what mechanisms are candidates to be sources of net angular momentum…
Uranus and Neptune have intrinsic magnetic fields generated via convection in a molten H2O layer, where the field strength is determined by its electrical conductivity (EC) along with convection size and velocity. Previous shock experiments…
At the cloud top level of Venus (65-70 km altitude) the atmosphere rotates 60 times faster than the underlying surface, a phenomenon known as superrotation. Whereas on Venus's dayside the cloud top motions are well determined and Venus…
We fit an isothermal oscillatory density model of Uranus' protoplanetary disk to the present-day major satellites and we determine the radial scale length of the disk, the equation of state and the central density of the primordial gas, and…
The excitation and damping mechanisms for oscillation modes of gas giant planets are undetermined. We show that differential rotation may greatly enhance convective viscosity in giant planets, resulting in damping times of $t_{\rm damp}…
In this paper we investigate the formation of Uranus and Neptune, according to the core-nucleated accretion model, considering formation locations ranging from 12 to 30 AU from the Sun, and with various disk solid-surface densities and core…
We examine the possibility of detecting signatures of surviving Uranus-Neptune-like planets inside planetary nebulae. Planets that are not too close to the stars, orbital separation larger than about 5 AU, are likely to survive the entire…
Polar vortices are common in the atmospheres of rapidly rotating planets [1-4]. On Earth and Mars they are tied to the surface and their existence follows the seasonal insolation cycle [1-3]. Venus is a slowly rotating planet but it is also…
The origin of rings around giant planets remains elusive. Saturn's rings are massive and made of 90-95% of water ice. In contrast, the much less massive rings of Uranus and Neptune are dark and likely to have higher rock fraction. Here we…
We investigate the enrichment patterns of several delivery scenarios of the volatiles to the atmospheres of ice giants, having in mind that the only well constrained determination made remotely, i.e. the carbon abundance measurement,…