Related papers: Differing Enceladean ocean circulation and ice she…
Orbital geophysical investigations of Enceladus are critical to understanding its energy balance. We identified key science questions for the geophysical exploration of Enceladus, answering which would support future assessment of…
Motivated by the important role of the ocean in the Earth climate system, here we investigate possible scenarios of ocean circulations on exoplanets using a one-layer shallow water ocean model. Specifically, we investigate how planetary…
Since the discovery of an ice particle plume erupting from the south polar terrain on Saturn's moon Enceladus, the geophysical mechanisms driving its activity have been the focus of substantial scientific research. The pattern and…
Observational data from the Cassini spacecraft are used to obtain a chemical model of ocean water on Enceladus. The model indicates that Enceladus' ocean is a Na-Cl-CO3 solution with an alkaline pH of ~11-12. The dominance of aqueous NaCl…
Tidal interactions between moons and planets can have major effects on the orbits, spins, and thermal evolution of the moons. In the Saturn system, tidal dissipation in the planet transfers angular momentum from Saturn to the moons, causing…
The atmospheric circulation in the upper atmosphere of hot Jupiter planets is strongly influenced by the incoming stellar radiation. In this work we explore the results from a 3D atmospheric model and revisit the main processes driving the…
Ice shell dynamics are an important control on the habitability of icy ocean worlds. Here we present a systematic study evaluating the effect of temperature-dependent material properties on these dynamics. We review the published thermal…
Saturn's moon Enceladus offers a unique opportunity in the search for life and habitable environments beyond Earth, a key theme of the National Research Council's 2013-2022 Decadal Survey. A plume of water vapor and ice spews from…
In order to characterize the global circulation of the subsurface ocean of Jovian and Saturnian moons, we analyze the properties of 21 three-dimensional simulations of Boussinesq thermal convection in a rapidly rotating spherical shell.…
Solid body tides provide key information on the interior structure, evolution, and origin of the planetary bodies. Our Solar system harbours a very diverse population of planetary bodies, including those composed of rock, ice, gas, or a…
Dissipation of ocean potential energy is proposed by Tyler (2020) as a new mechanism leading to possible high-power states for Enceladus. I show here that this process actually results from viscoelastic dissipation within the crust. For…
Electromagnetic (EM) sounding can constrain the electrical structure of Enceladus and, in turn, the salinity of its ocean and the porosity, fluid content, and thermal state of its hydrothermally active core. Here, we assess the feasibility…
The shearing motion of tidal flows that are excited in non-equilibrium binary stars transform kinetic energy into heat via a process referred to as tidal heating. In this paper we aim to explore the way tidal heating affects the stellar…
The New Horizons spacecraft has found evidence for geologic activity on the surface of Pluto, including extensional tectonic deformation of its water ice bedrock (see Moore et al., 2016). One mechanism that could drive extensional tectonic…
Tidal dissipation in planetary interiors is one of the key physical mechanisms that drive the evolution of star-planet and planet-moon systems. Tidal dissipation in planets is intrinsically related to their internal structure. In…
Much attention has been given to the climate dynamics and habitable boundaries of synchronously rotating planets around low mass stars. However, other rotational states are possible, particularly when higher eccentricity orbits can be…
Seismology was developed on Earth and shaped our model of the Earth's interior over the 20th century. With the exception of the Philae lander, all in situ extraterrestrial seismological effort to date was limited to other terrestrial…
The habitable zone for exomoons with Earth-like properties is a non-trivial manifold, compared to that of Earth-like exoplanets. The presence of tidal heating, eclipses and planetary illumination in the exomoon energy budget combine to…
The stability of a rotating flow in a triaxial ellipsoidal shell with an imposed temperature difference between inner and outer boundaries is studied numerically. We demonstrate that (i) a stable temperature field encourages the tidal…
Gyres are central features of large-scale ocean circulation and are involved in transporting tracers such as heat, nutrients, and carbon-dioxide within and across ocean basins. Traditionally, the gyre circulation is thought to be driven by…