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Related papers: Saturn's south polar cloud composition and structu…

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Our knowledge of Saturns neutral thermosphere is far superior to that of the other giant planets due to Cassini Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) observations of 15 solar occultations and 26 stellar occultations analyzed to date.…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2016-10-26 Darrell F. Strobel , Tommi Koskinen , Ingo Mueller-Wodarg

High altitude clouds and hazes are integral to understanding exoplanet observations, and are proposed to explain observed featureless transit spectra. However, it is difficult to make inferences from these data because of the need to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2014-10-09 Tyler D. Robinson , Luca Maltagliati , Mark S. Marley , Jonathan J. Fortney

In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturn's icy satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites' spectral properties (Filacchione et al.…

A planet's Lyman-{\alpha} (Ly{\alpha}) emission is sensitive to its thermospheric structure. Here, we report joint Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and Cassini cross-calibration observations of the Saturn Ly{\alpha} emission made two weeks…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2023-11-27 Lotfi Ben-Jaffel , Julie Moses , Robert A. West , M-K. aye , Eric T. Bradley , John T. Clarke , Jay B. Holber , Gilda E. Ballester

Spokes are localized clouds of fine particles that appear over the outer part of Saturn's B ring. Over the course of the Cassini Mission, the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) obtained over 20,000 images of the outer B ring, providing the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-01-22 S. R. Callos , M. M. Hedman , D. P. Hamilton

We present 2.03-2.30 micron near-infrared spectroscopy of Neptune taken 1999 June 2 (UT) with the W.M. Keck Observatory's near-infrared spectrometer (NIRSPEC) during the commissioning of the instrument. The spectrum is dominated by a bright…

We describe a powerful signal processing method, the continuous wavelet transform, and use it to analyze radial structure in Cassini ISS images of Saturn's rings. Wavelet analysis locally separates signal components in frequency space,…

Saturn's axial tilt of 26.7{\deg} produces seasons in a similar way as on Earth. Both the stratospheric temperature and composition are affected by this latitudinally varying insolation along Saturn's orbital path. A new time dependent 2D…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-03 Vincent Hue , Thibault Cavalié , Michel Dobrijevic , Franck Hersant , Thomas K. Greathouse

Saturn's polar stratosphere exhibits the seasonal growth and dissipation of broad, warm, vortices poleward of $\sim75^\circ$ latitude, which are strongest in the summer and absent in winter. The longevity of the exploration of the Saturn…

Keck near-infrared images of Neptune from UT 26 July 2007 show that the cloud feature typically observed within a few degrees of Neptune's south pole had split into a pair of bright spots. A careful determination of disk center places the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-18 S. H. Luszcz-Cook , I. de Pater , M. Adamkovics , H. B. Hammel

Far-IR 16-1000 $\mu$m spectra of Saturn's hydrogen-helium continuum measured by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) are inverted to construct a near-continuous record of upper tropospheric (70-700 mbar) temperatures and…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-10-14 Leigh N. Fletcher , Patrick G. J. Irwin , Richard K. Achterberg , Glenn S. Orton , F. Michael Flasar

Titan is one of the primary scientific objectives of the NASA ESA ASI Cassini Huygens mission. Scattering by haze particles in Titan's atmosphere and numerous methane absorptions dramatically veil Titan's surface in the visible range,…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2009-07-17 S. Rodriguez , S. Le Mouélic , C. Sotin , H. Clénet , R. N. Clark , B. Buratti , R. H. Brown , T. B. Mccord , P. D. Nicholson , K. H. Baines

The Cassini spacecraft's last orbits directly sampled Saturn's thermosphere and revealed a much more chemically complex environment than previously believed. Observations from the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) aboard Cassini…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-09-02 J. Serigano , S. M. Hörst , C. He , T. Gautier , R. V. Yelle , T. T. Koskinen , M. G Trainer

Recent analysis of Gemini-North/NIFS H-band (1.45 - 1.8 $\mu$m) observations of Uranus, recorded in 2010, with recently updated line data has revealed the spectral signature of hydrogen sulphide (H$_2$S) in Uranus's atmosphere (Irwin et…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-12-14 Patrick G. J. Irwin , Daniel Toledo , Ryan Garland , Nicholas A. Teanby , Leigh N. Fletcher , Glenn S. Orton , Bruno Bézard

We present spatially resolved ($0.1'' - 1.0''$) radio maps of Neptune taken from the Very Large Array and Atacama Large Submillimeter/Millimeter Array between $2015-2017$. Combined, these observations probe from just below the main methane…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-04-15 Joshua Tollefson , Imke de Pater , Edward M. Molter , Robert J. Sault , Bryan J. Butler , Statia Luszcz-Cook , David DeBoer

Ground-based and satellite observations have hinted at the existence of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) with relatively high optical depths, even if optical depth values are hard to come by. This study documents a type II PSC observed…

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics · Physics 2015-05-14 Vincent Noel , Albert Hertzog , Hélène Chepfer

Observations of Neptune, made in 2018 using the new Narrow Field Adaptive Optics mode of the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) from 0.48 - 0.93 micron, are analysed here to determine the…

Titan, with its thick and hazy atmosphere, is a key world in our solar system for understanding light scattering processes. NASA's Cassini mission monitored Titan between 2004 and 2017, where the derived dataset includes a large number of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-09-11 Chase A. Cooper , Tyler D. Robinson , Jason W. Barnes , L. C. Mayorga , Lily Robinthal

While Saturn's moon Titan appears to support an active methane hydrological cycle, no direct evidence for surface-atmosphere exchange has yet appeared. It is possible that the identified lake-features could be filled with ethane, an…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-14 M. E. Brown , A. L. Smith , C. Chen , M. Adamkovics

The detection of O2+ and O+ ions over Saturn's main rings by the Cassini INMS and CAPS instruments at Saturn orbit insertion (SOI) in 2004 confirmed the existence of the ring atmosphere and ionosphere. The source mechanism was suggested to…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-03 W. -L. Tseng , R. E. Johnson , M. K. Elrod