Related papers: Dust Devils on Titan
Investigating the overall brightness of planets (and moons) provides insight into their envelopes and energy budgets [1, 2, 3, 4]. Titan phase curves (a representation of overall brightness vs. Sun-object-observer phase angle) have been…
The building blocks of Titan and Enceladus are believed to have formed in a late-stage circumplanetary disk around Saturn. Evaluating the evolution of the abundances of volatile species in this disk as a function of the migration, growth,…
Dust formation in brown dwarf atmospheres is studied by utilising a model for driven turbulence in the mesoscopic scale regime. We apply a pseudo-spectral method where waves are created and superimposed within a limited wavenumber interval.…
The large scale structure of a brown dwarf atmosphere is determined by an interplay of convection, radiation, dust formation, and gravitational settling, which possibly provides an explanation for the observed variability. The result is an…
Surface modification on Jupiter's volcanically active moon, Io, has to date been attributed almost exclusively to lava emplacement and volcanic plume deposits. Here we demonstrate that wind-blown transport of sediment may also be altering…
Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are luminous massive blue stars thought to be immediate precursors to the supernova terminating their brief lives. The existence of dust shells around such stars has been enigmatic since their discovery some 30 years…
Signs of lightning on Venus have long been sought, including by space missions and ground-based telescopes searching for optical flashes, plasma waves, or radio signatures. These efforts have yielded conflicting findings regarding the…
Cold outer debris belts orbit a significant fraction of stars, many of which are planet-hosts. Radiative forces from the star lead to dust particles leaving the outer belts and spiralling inwards under Poynting-Robertson drag. We present an…
Winds from AGN and quasars will form large amounts of dust, as the cool gas in these winds passes through the (pressure, temperature) region where dust is formed in AGB stars. Conditions in the gas are benign to dust at these radii. As a…
The fluid dynamics in planet Saturn gives rise to alternating east-west jet streams, large cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices, and a dipole-dominant magnetic field which is highly axisymmetric about the planetary rotation axis. Modelling…
Observationally, spectra of brown dwarfs indicate the presence of dust in their atmospheres while theoretically it is not clear what prevents the dust from settling and disappearing from the regions of spectrum formation. Consequently,…
Infrared interferometry of local AGN has revealed a warm (~300K-400K) polar dust structure that cannot be trivially explained by the putative dust torus of the unified model. This led to the development of the disk+wind scenario which…
We study the outflow of dust particles on the surface layers of optically thick disks. At the surface of disks around young stars, small dust particles (size < 10 micron) experience stellar radiation pressure support and orbit more slowly…
Convection and turbulence in stellar atmospheres have a significant effect on the emergent flux from A-type stars. The recent theoretical advancements in convection modelling have proved a challenge to the observers to obtain measurements…
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…
A new physical hypothesis predicts that a weak coupling of the orbital and rotational motions of extended bodies may give rise to a modulation of circulatory flows within their atmospheres. Driven cycles of intensification and relaxation of…
Spacecraft observations of Saturn's rings show evidence of an active aggregation-disaggregation process triggered by periodic influences from the nearby moons. This leads to clumping and break-up of the ring particles at time-scales of the…
This work analyzes the X-ray, EUV and UV emission apparently coming from the Earth-facing (dark) side of Venus as observed with Hinode/XRT and SDO/AIA during a transit across the solar disk occurred in 2012. We have measured significant…
Few spacecraft have studied the dynamics of Venus' deep atmosphere, which is needed to understand the interactions between the surface and atmosphere. Recent global simulations suggest a strong effect of the diurnal cycle of surface winds…
In recent years, a vast increase in spectroscopic observations of transiting exoplanets has for the first time allowed us to search for broad trends in their atmospheric properties. Analysis of these observations has revealed that, even for…