Related papers: The Science Case for a Titan Flagship-class Orbite…
The abstract is additional with repect to the paper published in JGCD. Ordinary Earth satellites are usually placed into five categories of special orbits: sun-synchronous orbits, orbits at the critical inclination, frozen orbits, repeating…
RATIONALE: The investigation of cryogenic planetary environments as potential harbors for extant life and/or contemporary sites of organic synthesis represents an emerging focal point in planetary exploration. Next generation instruments…
Is life a common outcome of physical and chemical processes in the universe? Within our own solar system, a successful search for even primitive life, were it to have an origin independent from life on Earth, would dramatically advance a…
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…
With the Cassini-Huygens Mission in orbit around Saturn, the large moon Titan, with its reducing atmosphere, rich organic chemistry, and heterogeneous surface, moves into the astrobiological spotlight. Environmental conditions on Titan and…
The Einstein Probe (EP) is a mission designed to monitor the sky in the soft X-ray band. It will perform systematic surveys and characterisation of high-energy transients and monitoring of variable objects at unprecedented sensitivity and…
Spectroscopic transiting observations of the atmospheres of hot Jupiters around other stars, first with Hubble Space Telescope and then Spitzer, opened the door to compositional studies of exoplanets. The James Webb Space Telescope will…
[abridged] Measurements of relative isotope abundances can provide unique insights into the formation and evolution histories of celestial bodies. The five stable isotopes of titanium are used to study the early history of the solar system…
Icy satellites represent compelling astrobiological targets, but their rocky interiors must be better characterized. Fundamental research programs and thematic workshops promoting ocean world interdisciplinarity are key. Future missions to…
Sub-Neptunes - volatile-rich exoplanets smaller than Neptune - are intrinsically the most common type of planet known. However, the formation and nature of these objects, as well as the distinctions between sub-classes (if any), remain…
Deciphering the genesis and evolution of the Martian polar caps can provide crucial understanding of Mars' climate system. The growing scientific interest for the exploration of Mars at high latitudes, and the need of minimizing the…
The Hera Saturn entry probe mission is proposed as an M--class mission led by ESA with a contribution from NASA. It consists of one atmospheric probe to be sent into the atmosphere of Saturn, and a Carrier-Relay spacecraft. In this concept,…
Titan, the biggest moon of Saturn, has a thick atmosphere which presents similarities with the one thought to be on Earth at its beginning. The study of Titan s photochemical haze is thus a precious tool in gaining knowledge of the…
The COTS-Capsule Spaceborne hodoscope was launched into low earth orbit aboard the International Space Station and operated during 2021-2022. The primary objectives of the payload are: measuring and characterizing the radiation environment…
Current models of Titan ionosphere have difficulties in explaining the observed electron density and/or temperature. In order to get new insights, we re-analyzed the data taken in the ionosphere of Titan by the Cassini Langmuir probe (LP),…
The MICROSCOPE mission aimed to test the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) to a precision of $10^{-15}$. The WEP states that two bodies fall at the same rate on a gravitational field independently of their mass or composition. In MICROSCOPE,…
We present results of an investigation into the formation of nitrogen-bearing molecules in the atmosphere of Titan. We extend a previous model (Li et al. 2015, 2016) to cover the region below the tropopause, so the new model treats the…
The temperature structure of Titan's upper atmosphere exhibits large variability resulting from numerous spatially and temporally irregular external energy sources, seasonal changes, and the influence of molecular species produced via…
At a time when ALMA produces spectacular high resolution images of gas and dust in circumstellar disks, the next observational frontier in our understanding of planet formation and the chemistry of planet-forming material may be found in…
The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory, or HabEx, has been designed to be the Great Observatory of the 2030s. For the first time in human history, technologies have matured sufficiently to enable an affordable space-based telescope mission…