Related papers: Cascading parallel fractures on Enceladus
Layered semi-convection could operate in giant planets, potentially explaining the constraints on the heavy elements distribution in Jupiter deduced recently from Juno observations, and contributing to Saturn's luminosity excess or the…
The best constraints on the internal structures of giant planets have historically come from measurements of their gravity fields. These gravity data are inherently mostly sensitive to a planet's outer regions, providing only loose…
We have performed N-body simulations of star clusters orbiting in a spherically symmetric smooth galactic potential. The model clusters cover a range of initial half-mass radii and orbital eccentricities in order to test the historical…
At high Reynolds number, the interaction between two vortex tubes leads to intense velocity gradients, which are at the heart of fluid turbulence. This vorticity amplification comes about through two different instability mechanisms of the…
A model for strongly writhing confined solar eruptions suggests an origin in the helical kink instability of a coronal flux rope which remains stable against the torus instability. This model is tested against the well observed filament…
Eruptive flares are sudden releases of magnetic energy that involve many phenomena, several of which can be explained by the standard 2D flare model and its realizations in three-dimensions. We analyze a three-dimensional…
The observed rapid onset of star formation in molecular clouds requires rapid formation of dense fragments which can collapse individually before being overtaken by global gravitationally-driven flows. Many previous investigations have…
We show that a length scale xi can be extracted from the spatial correlations of the "steep cliffs" that appear on fracture surface. Above xi, the slope amplitudes are uncorrelated and the fracture surface is mono-affine. Below xi,…
Nuclear star clusters (NSCs), made up of a dense concentrations of stars and the compact objects they leave behind, are ubiquitous in the central regions of galaxies, surrounding the central supermassive black hole (SMBH). Close…
Mars' tadpole craters are small, young craters whose crater rims are incised by one or more exit breaches but lack visible inlets. The tadpole forming climate records the poorly understood drying of Mars since the Early Hesperian. A third…
Based on recent findings of a formation mechanism of substructure in tidal tails by Kuepper, Macleod & Heggie (2008) we investigate a more comprehensive set of N-body models of star clusters on orbits about a Milky-Way-like potential. We…
Stably-stratified layers may be present at the top of the electrically-conducting fluid layers of many planets either because the temperature gradient is locally subadiabatic or because a stable composition gradient is maintained by the…
We discuss the fragmentation of a filamentary cloud on the basis of a 1-dimensional hydrodynamical simulation of a self-gravitating gas cloud. The simulation shows that dense cores are produced with a semi-regular interval in space and time…
On the basis of ``sticky particle'' calculations, it is argued that the gas features observed within 10 pc of the Galactic Centre-- the circumnuclear disk (CND) and the ionized gas filaments-- as well as the newly formed stars in the inner…
Using ab initio simulations we investigate whether water ice is stable in the cores of giant planets, or whether it dissolves into the layer of metallic hydrogen above. By Gibbs free energy calculations we find that for pressures between 10…
The large eccentricities of cold Jupiters and the existence of hot Jupiters have long challenged theories of planet formation. A proposed solution to both of these puzzles is high-eccentricity migration, in which an initially cold Jupiter…
In this paper, we study the onset process of a solar eruption on 21 February 2015, focusing on its unambiguous precursor phase. With multi-wavelength imaging observations from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), definitive…
Enceladus is a prime target in the search for life in our solar system, having an active plume likely connected to a large liquid water subsurface ocean. Using the sensitive NIRSpec instrument onboard JWST, we searched for organic compounds…
The core accretion theory of planet formation has at least two fundamental problems explaining the origins of Uranus and Neptune: (1) dynamical times in the trans-Saturnian solar nebula are so long that core growth can take > 15 Myr, and…
The population of giant planets on short-period orbits can potentially be explained by some flavours of high-eccentricity migration. In this paper we investigate one such mechanism involving "secular chaos", in which secular interactions…