Related papers: Modeling glacial flow on and onto Pluto's Sputnik …
The vast, deep, volatile-ice-filled basin informally named Sputnik Planum is central to Pluto's geological activity[1,2]. Composed of molecular nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide ices[3], but dominated by N2-ice, this ice layer is…
Pluto's landscape is shaped by the cycles of the volatile ices covering its surface. In particular, the Sputnik Planitia (SP) ice sheet displays a large diversity of terrains, with bright and dark plains, pits, topographic depressions and…
Pluto's surface is geologically complex because of volatile ices that are mobile on seasonal and longer time scales. Here we analyzed New Horizons LEISA spectral data to globally map the nitrogen ice, including nitrogen with methane diluted…
The deep nitrogen-covered Sputnik Planitia (SP; informal name) basin on Pluto is located very close to the longitude of Pluto's tidal axis[1] and may be an impact feature [2], by analogy with other large basins in the solar system[3,4].…
We present a coupled reorientation and climate model, to understand how true polar wander (TPW) and atmospheric condensation worked together to create the Sputnik Planitia (SP) ice sheet and reorient it to its present-day location on Pluto.…
Sputnik Planitia, Pluto's gigantic ice glacier, hosts numerous scientific mysteries, including the presence of thousands of elongated pit structures. We examine various attributes of these pit structures in New Horizons data sets, revealing…
The role of water ice in the solar system is reviewed from a fluid-dynamical point of view. On Earth and Mars, water ice forms ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers at the surface, which show glacial flow under their own weight. By contrast,…
On July 14th 2015, NASA's New Horizons mission gave us an unprecedented detailed view of the Pluto system. The complex compositional diversity of Pluto's encounter hemisphere was revealed by the Ralph/LEISA infrared spectrometer on board of…
In protoplanetary disks, the water snowline marks the location where ice-rich pebbles sublimate, releasing silicate grains and water vapor. These processes can trigger pile-ups of solids, making the water snowline a promising site for…
Starting from the governing equations for geophysical flows, by means of a thin-shell approximation and a tangent plane approximation, we derive the equations describing, at leading order, the nonlinear ice-drift flow for regions centered…
The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water ice bedrock (see Moore et al., 2016). One mechanism that could drive extensional tectonic…
Around the snow line, icy pebbles and silicate dust may locally pile-up and form icy and rocky planetesimals via streaming instability and/or gravitational instability. We perform 1D diffusion-advection simulations that include the…
We use tools from statistical physics to develop a stochastic theory for the drift of a single Arctic sea-ice floe. Floe-floe interactions are modelled using a Coulomb friction term, with any change in the thickness or the size of the ice…
New Horizons observations suggest that CH4 on Pluto has a complex history, involving reservoirs of different composition, thickness and stability controlled by volatile processes occurring on different timescales. In order to interpret…
The presence of N2 in the surface environment of Pluto is critical in creating Pluto's richness of features and processes. Here, we propose that the nitrogen atoms in the N2 observed on Pluto were accreted in that chemical form during the…
The Martian climate is governed by an annual cycle, that results in the condensation of CO$_{2}$ ice during winter, up to a meter thick at the pole and thousands of kilometers in extension. Water and dust may be trapped during the…
We describe a comprehensive model for the formation and morphological development of atmospheric ice crystals growing from water vapor, also known as snow crystals. Our model derives in part from empirical measurements of the intrinsic ice…
Several clues indicate that Titan's atmosphere has been depleted in methane during some period of its history, possibly as recently as 0.5-1 billion years ago. It could also happen in the future. Under these conditions, the atmosphere…
In this work we perform computer simulations of the ice surface in order to elucidate the role of nitrogen in the crystal growth rates and crystal habits of snow in the atmosphere. In pure water vapor at temperatures typical of ice crystal…
Evolution of a snow line in an optically-thick protoplanetary disk is investigated with numerical simulations. The ice-condensing region in the disk is obtained by calculating the temperature and the density with the 1+1D approach. The snow…