Related papers: Evolution of an Early Titan Atmosphere: Comment
This brief review will discuss the current knowledge on the origin and evolution of the nitrogen atmospheres of the icy bodies in the solar system, particularly of Titan, Triton and Pluto. An important tool to analyse and understand the…
We generalize the problem of the semi-gray model to cases in which a non-negligible fraction of the stellar radiation falls on the long-wavelength range, and/or that the planetary long-wavelength emission penetrates into the transparent…
The climate of Mars likely evolved from a warmer, wetter early state to the cold, arid current state. However, no solutions for this evolution have previously been found to satisfy the observed geological features and isotopic measurements…
MESSENGER observations suggest a magma ocean formed on proto-Mercury, during which evaporation of metals and outgassing of C- and H-bearing volatiles produced an early atmosphere. Atmospheric escape subsequently occurred by plasma heating,…
The discovery of thousands of highly irradiated, low-mass, exoplanets has led to the idea that atmospheric escape is an important process that can drive their evolution. Of particular interest is the inference from recent exoplanet…
With a Monte-Carlo model we investigate the escape of hot oxygen and carbon from the martian atmosphere for four points in time in its history corresponding to 1, 3, 10, and 20 times the present solar EUV flux. We study and discuss…
The ion escape of Mars' CO$_2$ atmosphere caused by its dissociation products C and O atoms is {simulated} from present time to $\sim 4.1$ billion years ago (Ga) by {numerical models of the upper atmosphere and its interaction with the…
The long-term retention of substantial atmospheres in close-in exoplanets presents a major challenge to classical hydrodynamic escape theory, which predicts rapid mass loss under intense stellar irradiation. In this work, we propose a fully…
Nitrogen is the most common element in Earth's atmosphere and also appears to be present in significant amounts in the mantle. However, its long-term cycling between these two reservoirs remains poorly understood. Here a range of biotic and…
The most productive tracer of exoplanetary atmospheric escape is the measurement of excess absorption in the near-infrared metastable helium triplet during transits. Atmospheric escape of a close-in planet's atmosphere plays a role in its…
An unexpected feature of Titan's atmosphere is the strong depletion in primordial noble gases revealed by the Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer aboard the Huygens probe during its descent on 2005 January 14. Although several plausible…
Cassini's observations of Titan's atmosphere are exemplary benchmarks for exoplanet atmospheric studies owing to (1) their precision and (2) our independent knowledge of Titan. Leveraging these observations, we perform retrievals (i.e.,…
With the discovery of ever smaller and colder exoplanets, terrestrial worlds with hazy atmospheres must be increasingly considered. Our Solar System's Titan is a prototypical hazy planet, whose atmosphere may be representative of a large…
Titan's abundant atmospheric N2 and CH4 gases are notable characteristics of the moon that may help constrain its origins and evolution. Previous work suggests that atmospheric CH4 is lost on geologically short timescales and may be…
Water photolysis and hydrogen loss from the upper atmospheres of terrestrial planets is of fundamental importance to climate evolution but remains poorly understood in general. Here we present a range of calculations we performed to study…
Warm Neptune- and sub-Neptune-sized exoplanets in orbits smaller than Mercury's are thought to have experienced extensive atmospheric evolution. Here we propose that a potential outcome of this atmospheric evolution is the formation of…
Predicting the rate of escape and thermal structure of Pluto's upper atmosphere in preparation for the New Horizons Spacecraft encounter in 2015 is important for planning and interpreting the expected measurements. Having a moderate Jeans…
Atmospheric escape is now considered the major contributing factor in shaping the demographic of detected exoplanets. However, inferences about the exoplanet populations strongly depend on the accuracy of the models. Direct observational…
We investigate the effects of varying Saturn's orbit on the atmospheric circulation and surface methane distribution of Titan. Using a new general circulation model of Titan's atmosphere, we simulate its climate under four characteristic…
Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising…