Related papers: Are Large Trojan Asteroids Salty? An Observational…
The rapid accumulation of thermal infrared observations and shape models of asteroids has led to increased interest in thermophysical modeling. Most of these infrared observations are unresolved. We consider what fraction of an asteroid's…
Observational searches for asteroids orbiting near Earth's triangular Lagrange points face unique obstacles. A population of such asteroids would occupy a large projected area on the sky (possibly hundreds of square degrees) and is not…
We present a comparative analysis of the spectral slope and color distributions of Jupiter Trojans, with particular attention to asteroid families. We use a sample of data from the Moving Object Catalogue of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey,…
The search for atmospheres on rocky exoplanets is a crucial step in understanding the processes driving atmosphere formation, retention, and loss. Past studies have revealed the existence of planets interior to the radius valley with…
To aid in the physical interpretation of planetary radii constrained through observations of transiting planets, or eventually direct detections, we compute model radii of pure hydrogen-helium, water, rock, and iron planets, along with…
We probed the surface environment of large ($>$80 km in diameter) T-type asteroids, a taxonomic type relatively ill-constrained as an independent group, and discussed their place of origin. We performed spectroscopic observations of two…
The measured nitrogen-to-carbon ratio in comets is lower than for the Sun, a discrepancy which could be alleviated if there is an unknown reservoir of nitrogen in comets. The nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko exhibits an…
Trojans are circumstellar bodies that reside in characteristic 1:1 orbital resonances with planets. While all the trojans in our Solar System are small (< ~100 km), stable planet-size trojans may exist in extrasolar planetary systems, and…
A relationship between the average orbital radii of the planets and their satellites in the solar system and the spectra of atomic and molecular hydrogen is identified and investigated. In this model, stimulated radiative association…
The analysis of transiting extra-solar planets provides an enormous amount of information about the formation and evolution of planetary systems. A precise knowledge of the host stars is necessary to derive the planetary properties…
We investigated whether ammonia-rich constituents are present on the surface of the Uranian moon Ariel by analyzing 32 near-infrared reflectance spectra collected over a wide range of sub-observer longitudes and latitudes. We measured the…
Asteroids with satellites are natural laboratories to constrain the formation and evolution of our solar system. The binary Trojan asteroid (624) Hektor is the only known Trojan asteroid to possess a small satellite. Based on W.M. Keck…
We investigate spectra of airless rocky exoplanets with a theoretical framework that self-consistently treats reflection and thermal emission. We find that a silicate surface on an exoplanet is spectroscopically detectable via prominent…
Bright deposits in permanently shadowed craters on Ceres are thought to harbor water ice. However, the evidence for water ice presented thus far is indirect. We aim to directly detect the spectral characteristics of water ice in bright…
The Trojan population consists of two swarms of asteroids following the same orbit as Jupiter and located at the L4 and L5 Lagrange points of the Jupiter-Sun system (leading and following Jupiter by 60 degrees). The asteroid 617 Patroclus…
We use 1.4-4.6 micron multi-band photometry of the small inner Uranian and Neptunian satellites obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope's near-infrared imager NIRCam to characterize their surface compositions. We find that the…
The composition of Solar System surfaces can be inferred through reflectance and emission spectroscopy, by comparing these observations to laboratory measurements and radiative transfer models. While several populations of objects appear to…
Atmospheric compositions preserve the history of planet formation processes. Jupiter has the remarkable feature of being uniformly enriched in various elements compared to the Sun, including highly volatile elements such as nitrogen and…
We investigate whether the surfaces of the classical moons of Uranus are compositionally stratified, with a thin veneer of mostly tiny H2O ice grains (<= 2 micron diameters) mantling a lower layer composed of larger grains of H2O ice, dark…
Polarization phase-curve measurements provide a unique constraint on the surface properties of asteroids that are complementary to those from photometry and spectroscopy, and have led to the identification of the ``Barbarian'' asteroids as…