Related papers: Amplification of dust loading in Martian dust devi…
Dark matter (DM) decays and annihilations might heat and partially reionize the Universe at high redshift. Although this effect is not important for the cosmic reionization, the gas heating due to DM particles might affect the structure…
A potential crewed mission to Mars would require us to solve a number of problems, including how to protect astronauts against the devastating effects of energetic charged particles from Solar and Galactic sources. The radiation environment…
We suggest that the abrupt switch, from hierarchical clustering on scales larger than 0.04 pc, to binary (and occasionally higher multiple) systems on smaller scales, which Larson has deduced from his analysis of the grouping of…
Post-Noachian Martian paleochannels indicate the existence of liquid water on the surface of Mars after about 3.5 Gya (Irwin et al., 2015; Palucis et al., 2016). In order to explore the effects of variations in CO$_{2}$ partial pressure and…
The formation of gullies on Mars has often been attributed to the melting of (sub)surface water ice. However, melting-based hypotheses generally overlook key processes: (1) sublimation cooling by latent heat absorption, (2) the…
For decades, scientists have tried to explain the evidence for fluvial activity on early Mars, but a consensus has yet to emerge regarding the mechanism for producing it. One hypothesis suggests early Mars was warmed by a thick greenhouse…
Context. Findings by the Helios and STEREO mission have indicated the presence of a resonant circumsolar ring of dust associated with Venus. Attempts to model this phenomenon as an analogue to the resonant ring of Earth - as a result of…
Lightsails using Earth-based lasers for propulsion require passive stabilization to stay within the beam. This can be achieved through the sail's scattering properties, creating optical restoring forces and torques. Undamped restoring…
The wind-driven hopping motion of sand grains, known as saltation, forms dunes and ripples and ejects fine dust particles into the atmosphere on both Earth and Mars. While the wind speed at which saltation is initiated, the fluid threshold,…
Dark energy (i.e., a cosmological constant) leads, in the Newtonian approximation, to a repulsive force which grows linearly with distance and which can have astrophysical consequences. For example, the dark energy force overcomes the…
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…
Atmospheres regulate the planetary heat loss and therefore influence planetary thermal evolution. Uncertainty in a giant planet's thermal state contributes to the uncertainty in the inferred abundance of heavy elements it contains. Within…
We present a statistical analysis on the variability of the incompressible energy cascade rate in the solar wind around Mars, making use of an exact relation for fully developed turbulence and more than five years of Mars Atmosphere and…
We present the first calculation of saltation transport and dune formation on Mars and compare it to real dunes. We find that the rate at which grains are entrained into saltation on Mars is one order of magnitude higher than on Earth. With…
Surfaces of planetary bodies can have strong electric fields, subjecting conductive grains to repulsive electrostatic forces. This has been proposed as mechanism to eject grains from the ground. To quantify this process, we study mm-sized…
This paper presents the Mars Dust Storm Detector (MDSD), a system that leverages the THz Opportunistic Integrated Sensing and Communications (OISAC) signals between Mars surface assets (rovers and landers) to extract environmental…
Whether extant life exists in the martian subsurface is an open question. High concentrations of photochemically produced CO and H2 in the otherwise oxidizing martian atmosphere represent untapped sources of biologically useful free energy.…
We carried out wind tunnel experiments on parabolic flights with 100 $\mu$m Mojave Mars simulant sand. The experiments result in shear stress thresholds and erosion rates for varying g-levels at 600 Pa pressure. Our data confirm former…
Dust growth via accretion of gas species has been proposed as the dominant process to increase the amount of dust in galaxies. We show here that this hypothesis encounters severe difficulties that make it unfit to explain the observed UV…
Atmospheric escape is an important process that influences the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A variety of physical mechanisms can contribute to escape from an atmosphere, including thermal escape, ion escape, photochemical escape, and…