Related papers: Characterization of a Thick Ozone Layer in Mars' P…
The first in-situ measurements of the altitude profile of Martian upper atmospheric density and composition were carried out by the Viking lander missions in 1976. The MAVEN and MOM spacecraft launched in September 2014 with mass…
The impact of the vapor pressure difference between deuterated and nondeuterated condensing molecules in planetary atmospheres is quantitatively assessed. This difference results in a loss of deuterium in the vapor phase above the…
For over a decade, scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been recording measurements from the Martian surface as a part of the Mars Exploration Rovers mission. One quantity of interest has been the opacity of Mars's…
Previous research has indicated that high amounts of ozone (O3) and oxygen (O2) may be produced abiotically in atmospheres with high concentrations of CO2. The abiotic production of these two gases, which are also characteristic of…
Active dark flows known as recurring slope lineae have been observed on the warmest slopes of equatorial Mars. The morphology, composition and seasonality of the lineae suggest a role of liquid water in their formation. However, internal…
Understanding the sources of lunar water is crucial for studying the history of lunar evolution, and also the solar wind interaction with the Moon and other airless bodies. Recent observations revealed lunar hydration is very likely a…
As the characterization of exoplanet atmospheres proceeds, providing insights into atmospheric chemistry and composition, a key question is how much deeper into the planet we might be able to see from its atmospheric properties alone. For…
The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital…
The Mars thermosphere holds clues to the evolution of the Martian climate, and has practical implications for spacecraft visiting Mars, which often use it for aerobraking upon arrival, or for landers, which must pass through it.…
The martian atmosphere hosts dynamical phenomena ranging from planet-encircling dust storms to mesoscale orographic clouds and nocturnal low-level jets. General circulation model show capability to simulate these phenomena, but is…
We explore the atmospheric and surface history of a hypothetical paleo-Venus climate using a 3-D General Circulation Model. We constrain our model with the in-situ and remote sensing Venus data available today. Given that Venus and Earth…
The raw exospheric composition data of Mars for the period September 2014 to October 2015 has been retrieved and analysed using the observations carried out by Mars Exospheric Neutral Composition Analyser (MENCA) payload on-board the Mars…
The study of the evolution of Martian atmosphere and its response to EUV irradiation is an extremely important topic in planetary science. One of the dominant effects of atmospheric losses is the photochemical escape of atomic oxygen from…
The biologically damaging solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation (quantified by the DNA-weighted dose) reaches the Martian surface in extremely high levels. Searching for potentially habitable UV-protected environments on Mars, we considered the…
(Abridged) The upper atmospheres of close-in gas giant exoplanets are subjected to intense heating/tidal forces from their parent stars. Atomic/ionized hydrogen (H) layers are sufficiently rarefied that magnetic pressure may dominate gas…
Carbon dioxide ice clouds are thought to play an important role for cold terrestrial planets with thick CO2 dominated atmospheres. Various previous studies showed that a scattering greenhouse effect by carbon dioxide ice clouds could result…
Mars' sedimentary rocks record Gyrs of environmental change. New data enable the first global analysis of paleo-environment relevant physical properties of these rocks, including layer thickness and accumulation rate. We find that layer…
Water vapour atmospheres with content equivalent to the Earth's oceans, resulting from impacts or a high insolation, were found to yield a surface magma ocean. This was, however, a consequence of assuming a fully convective structure. Here…
H$_2$-dominated terrestrial exoplanets are highly accessible to atmospheric characterization via transmission spectroscopy, but such atmospheres are generally thought to be unstable to escape. Here, we propose that close-in, eccentric…
Surface release of radiatively active particles, with high infrared- (IR-)to-visible extinction ratios, has been proposed as a method of warming Mars. However, to warm Mars using aerosols, particles released locally must disperse globally.…