Related papers: Evolution of major sedimentary mounds on Mars
Mound formation on flat and miscut crystal surfaces exhibits distinct growth behaviors. While mound structures are the predominant feature on flat surfaces, miscut surfaces display a smooth transition from meandered patterns to…
Planets with masses between 0.1 - 10 M_earth are believed to host dense atmospheres. These atmospheres can play an important role on the planet's spin evolution, since thermal atmospheric tides, driven by the host star, may counterbalance…
The climate of early Mars has been hotly debated for decades. Although most investigators believe that the geology indicates the presence of surface water, disagreement has persisted regarding how warm and wet the surface must have been and…
A sufficient amount of water is required at the surface to develop water oceans. A significant fraction of water, however, remains in the mantle during magma ocean solidification, and thus the existence of water oceans is not guaranteed…
It is debated whether close-in giant planets can form in-situ and if not, which mechanisms are responsible for their migration. One of the observable tests for migration theories is the current value of the angle between the stellar…
In the giant impact hypothesis for lunar origin, the Moon accreted from an equatorial circum-terrestrial disk; however the current lunar orbital inclination of 5 degrees requires a subsequent dynamical process that is still debated. In…
The Mars Atmosphere-Ice Coupler MAIC-2 is a simple, latitudinal model, which consists of a set of parameterisations for the surface temperature, the atmospheric water transport and the surface mass balance (condensation minus evaporation)…
Planetary obliquity (axial tilt) plays an important role in regulating the climate evolution and habitability of water-covered planets. Despite the suspicion of large obliquities in several exoplanetary systems, this phenomenon remains hard…
Desert surfaces are typically non uniform, with individual sand dunes generally surrounded by gravel or non-erodible beds. Similarly, beaches vary in composition and moisture that enhances cohesion between the grains. These bed…
The evolution of the interior of stagnant-lid bodies is comparatively easier to model and predict with respect to the Earth's due to the absence of the large uncertainties associated with the physics of plate tectonics, its onset time and…
We present a new implementation of the hydrological cycle scheme into a general circulation model of the Martian atmosphere. The model includes a semi-Lagrangian transport scheme for water vapor and ice, and accounts for microphysics of…
The illuminated dusty surface of Mars acts like a gas pump. It is driven by thermal creep at low pressure within the soil. In the top soil layer this gas flow has to be sustained by a pressure gradient. This is equivalent to a lifting force…
The time evolution of atmospheric dust at high southern latitudes on Mars has been determined using observations of the south seasonal cap acquired in the near infrared (1-2.65 {\mu}m) by OMEGA/Mars Express in 2005. Observations at…
The dynamical evolution of the solar system is chaotic with a Lyapunov time of only $\sim$5 Myr for the inner planets. Due to the chaos it is fundamentally impossible to accurately predict the solar system's orbital evolution beyond…
We present spatial and temporal distributions of dust on Mars from Ls = 331 in MY26 until Ls = 80 in MY33 retrieved from the measurements taken by the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) aboard Mars Express. In agreement with previous…
Thermal tides are atmospheric planetary-scale waves with periods that are harmonics of the solar day. In the Martian atmosphere thermal tides are known to be especially significant compared to any other known planet. Based on the data set…
The erosion of lunar soil by rocket exhaust plumes is investigated experimentally. This has identified the diffusion-driven flow in the bulk of the sand as an important but previously unrecognized mechanism for erosion dynamics. It has also…
It remains an elusive goal to simultaneously model the astrophysics of Solar System accretion while reproducing the mantle chemistry of more than one inner terrestrial planet. Here, we used a multistage core-mantle differentiation model…
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…
Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars undergo strong tidal effects that modify their spin states. These planets are expected to host dense atmospheres that can also play an important role in the spin evolution. On one…