Related papers: Uranus Study Report: KISS
Determining compositions of low-mass exoplanets is essential in understanding their origins. The certainty by which masses and radius are measured affects our ability to discern planets that are rocky or volatile rich. In this study, we aim…
In addition to its suite of narrow dense rings, Uranus is surrounded by an extremely complex system of dusty rings that were most clearly seen by the Voyager spacecraft after it flew past the planet. A new analysis of the highest resolution…
Post equinox imaging of Uranus by HST, Keck, and Gemini telescopes has enabled new measurements of winds over previously sampled latitudes as well as measurements at high northern latitudes that have recently come into better view. These…
Structure in the planet distribution provides an insight into the processes that shape the formation and evolution of planets. The Kepler mission has led to an abundance of statistical discoveries in regards to planetary radius, but the…
The exploration of small bodies in the Solar System is a high priority planetary science. Asteroids, comets, and planetary moons yield important information about the evolution of the Solar System. Additionally, they could provide resources…
Super-Earths, a class of planetary bodies with masses ranging from a few Earth-masses to slightly smaller than Uranus, have recently found a special place in the exoplanetary science. Being slightly larger than a typical terrestrial planet,…
The energy density of the Universe is dominated by dark energy and dark matter, two mysterious components which pose some of the most important questions in fundamental science today. Euclid is a high-precision survey mission designed to…
The shapes of fluid planets bear the signatures of rotational flattening and atmospheric flows. Precise knowledge of their shapes and wind profiles may therefore reveal their interior rotation rates. We re-examine this idea for the ice…
Here it is shown how to find the interior structure of a variety of rock-and-iron planetary bodies by using the rock density and some aspects of the core density as known for the Earth and using a convection principle for the iron-rich…
Recently, the Kepler spacecraft has detected a sizable aggregate of objects, characterized by giant-planet-like radii and modest levels of stellar irradiation. With the exception of a handful of objects, the physical nature, and…
NASA's Spitzer Infrared Spectrometer (IRS) acquired mid-infrared (5-37 microns) disc-averaged spectra of Uranus very near to its equinox in December 2007. A mean spectrum was constructed from observations of multiple central meridian…
Planetary science beyond the boundaries of our Solar System is today in its infancy. Until a couple of decades ago, the detailed investigation of the planetary properties was restricted to objects orbiting inside the Kuiper Belt. Today, we…
One of the main open issues of neutrino physics is the determination of the mass hierarchy, discriminating between the two possible ordering of the mass eigenvalues, known as Normal and Inverted Hierarchies. The solution of this puzzle…
The determination of Saturn's atmospheric noble gas abundances are critical to understanding the formation and evolution of Saturn, and giant planets in general. These measurements can only be performed with an entry probe. A Saturn probe…
This review focuses on recent results in advancing our understanding of the location and distribution of habitable exo-Earth environments. We first review the qualities that define a habitable planet/moon environment. We extend these…
The surface and subsurface of worlds beyond Mars remain largely unexplored. Yet these worlds hold keys to fundamental questions in planetary science - from potentially habitable subsurface oceans on icy moons to ancient records preserved in…
Materials at high pressures and temperatures are of great interest for planetary science and astrophysics, warm dense matter physics, and inertial confinement fusion research. Planetary structure models rely on our understanding of the…
Context: As a result of Titan's migration and Saturn's probable capture in secular spin-orbit resonance, recent works show that Saturn's obliquity could be steadily increasing today and may reach large values in the next billions of years.…
Thousands of exoplanets have been found with many widely different from the ones in our own system. Despite the success, systems with planets in wide orbits analogous to those of Jupiter and Saturn, in the critical first several hundred…
We report the discovery of a cold planet with a very low planet/host mass ratio of $q=(4.09\pm0.27) \times 10^{-5}$, which is similar to the ratio of Uranus/Sun ($q=4.37 \times 10^{-5}$) in the Solar system. The Bayesian estimates for the…