Related papers: Photochemistry and Haze Formation
Titan has a diverse range of materials in its atmosphere and on its surface: the simple organics that reside in various phases (gas, liquid, ice) and the solid complex refractory organics that form Titan's haze layers. These materials all…
Over the last decade, precise exoplanet transmission spectroscopy has revealed the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets, driven largely by observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. One major discovery has been the ubiquity of…
We study the amount, size distribution and material composition of (sub-)mic aerosol particles in the lower Venus atmosphere < 50 km. Our GGchem phase-equilibrium model predicts metal-chloride and metal-fluoride molecules to be present in…
In this paper we review recent progress in our understanding of the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks. Current observational constraints and theoretical modeling on the chemical composition of gas and dust in these systems are…
Saturn's largest satellite, Titan, has a thick atmosphere dominated by nitrogen and methane. The dense orange-brown smog hiding the satellite's surface is produced by photochemical reactions of methane, nitrogen and their dissociation…
Images from instruments on Cassini as well as from telescopes on the ground reveal the presence of sporadic small-scale cloud activity in the cold late-winter north polar of Saturn's large moon Titan. These clouds lie underneath the…
We study in detail how massive galaxies accrete gas through cosmic time using cosmological hydrodynamical simulations from the High-z Evolution of Large and Luminous Objects (HELLO) and the Numerical Investigation of a Hundred Astrophysical…
At optical wavelengths, Titan's brightness for large Sun-Titan-observer phase angles significantly exceeds its dayside brightness. The brightening that occurs near back-illumination is due to moderately large haze particles in the moon's…
The low mean densities of sub-Neptunes imply that they formed within a few million years and accreted primordial envelopes. Because these planets receive a total X-ray and extreme ultra-violet flux that is comparable to the gravitational…
Titan's atmosphere possesses thick haze layers, but their formation mechanisms remain poorly understood, including the influence of oxygen-containing gas components on organic matter synthesis. As the most abundant oxygen-containing gas,…
In this chapter, we review the processes involved in the formation of planetesimals and comets. We will start with a description of the physics of dust grain growth and how this is mediated by gas-dust interactions in planet-forming disks.…
Approximate analytic expressions for haze (and gloss) of Gaussian randomly rough surfaces for various types of correlation functions are derived within phase-perturbation theory. The approximations depend on the angle of incidence,…
Recent observational and theoretical work suggests that the formation of the Galactic stellar halo involved both dissipative processes and the accretion of subfragments. With present data, the fraction of the halo for which an accretion…
In this paper we adopt a chemical evolution model, which is an improved version of the Chiappini, Matteucci and Gratton (1997) model, assuming two main accretion episodes for the formation of the Galaxy. The present model takes into account…
The thermal and expansion history of the Universe before big bang nucleosynthesis is unknown. We investigate the evolution of cosmological perturbations through the transition from an early matter era to radiation domination. We treat…
High altitude meteors become luminous at altitudes above $\sim$130 km, where the standard ablation theory of meteor light production is not applicable. The physical mechanism responsible for their glow has not been known. We present a model…
Photochemistry is a fundamental process of planetary atmospheres that regulates the atmospheric composition and stability. However, no unambiguous photochemical products have been detected in exoplanet atmospheres to date. Recent…
In the hierarchical structure formation model cosmic halos are supposed to form by accretion of smaller units along anisotropic direction, defined by large-scale filamentary structures. After the epoch of primary mass aggregation (which…
Titan's abundant lakes and seas exchange methane vapor and energy with the atmosphere via a process generally known as air-sea interaction. This turbulent exchange process is investigated with an atmospheric mesoscale model coupled to a…
As an exoplanet transits its host star, some of the light from the star is absorbed by the atoms and molecules in the planet's atmosphere, causing the planet to seem bigger; plotting the planet's observed size as a function of the…