Related papers: Propelling Interplanetary Spacecraft Utilizing Wat…
Electric sails are propulsion systems that generate momentum via the deflection of stellar wind particles through electric forces. Here, we investigate the relative merits of electric sails and light sails driven by stellar radiation…
Challenging space missions include those at very low altitudes, where the atmosphere is source of aerodynamic drag on the spacecraft that finally defines the missions lifetime unless way to compensate for it is provided. This environment is…
The search for life on exoplanets is one of the grand scientific challenges of our time. The strategy to date has been to find (e.g., through transit surveys like Kepler) Earth-like exoplanets in their stars habitable zone, then use…
Water reservoirs in the Solar System exhibit a deuterium enrichment that links back to the physical environment at the time of stellar birth. Gas-phase and ice-grain deuterium enrichments occur through chemical processes that operate at low…
Water is crucial for the emergence and evolution of life on Earth. Recent studies of the water content in early forming planetary systems similar to our own show that water is an abundant and ubiquitous molecule, initially synthesized on…
Simulations with the Max Planck Institute Martian general circulation model for Martian years 28 and 34 reveal details of the water "pump" mechanism and the role of gravity wave (GW) forcing. Water is advected to the upper atmosphere mainly…
Terrestrial and sub-Neptune planets are expected to form in the inner ($<10~$AU) regions of protoplanetary disks. Water plays a key role in their formation, although it is yet unclear whether water molecules are formed in-situ or…
The most observable leakage radiation from an advanced civilization may well be from the use of power beaming to transfer energy and accelerate spacecraft. Applications suggested for power beaming involve launching spacecraft to orbit,…
Water in outflows from protostars originates either as a result of gas-phase synthesis from atomic oxygen at T > 200 K, or from sputtered ice mantles containing water ice. We aim to quantify the contribution of the two mechanisms that lead…
We investigate how well the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets (LIFE) mission concept can detect habitable conditions on exoplanets through the presence of atmospheric water vapor as a proxy for surface oceans. We model the atmosphere of a…
Recent detection of exoplanets with Earth-like insolation attracts growing interest in how common Earth-like aqua planets are beyond the solar system. While terrestrial planets are often assumed to capture icy or water-rich planetesimals, a…
The delivery of water to the inner Solar System rocky planets, including Earth, remains debated, as standard models assume that they formed from dry grains, inside the snowline of the protosolar nebula. However, a recent work showed that a…
Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are thought to contain a wealth of resources, including water, iron, titanium, nickel, platinum and silicates. Future space missions that can exploit these resources by performing In-Situ Resource Utilization…
High power Earth and orbital-based directed energy (DE) systems pose a potential hazard to Earth orbiting spacecraft. The use of very high power, large aperture DE systems to propel spacecraft is being pursued as the only known, feasible…
Context. The presence of dust in the interstellar medium has profound consequences on the chemical composition of regions where stars are forming. Recent observations show that many species formed onto dust are populating the gas phase,…
A quintessential source of heat, the Sun radiates toward the Earth a power ten thousand times greater than humanity's energy needs. Harnessing this energy bounty, however, requires capturing and converting sunlight. Today, this conversion…
Prevailing models for the formation of the Moon invoke a giant impact between a planetary embryo and the proto-Earth \citep{Canup_2004, Cuk_Stewart_2012}. Despite similarities in the isotopic and chemical abundances of refractory elements…
Making use of the publicly available 1D photoionization hydrodynamics code ATES we set out to investigate the combined effects of planetary gravitational potential energy ($\phi_p\equiv GM_p/R_p$) and stellar X-ray and Extreme Ultraviolet…
A novel non-reactive thrust principle based on controlling the angular momentum of a material body is proposed. Theoretically, it is shown that asymmetric emission/absorption of low-energy particle fluxes with spin in a direction…
Modeling has been developed to support the development of volatile extraction technologies for the Moon, Mars, asteroids, or other bodies. This type of modeling capability is important to avoid the high cost of multiple test campaigns in…