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Dust aerosol plays a fundamental role in the behavior and evolution of the Martian atmosphere. The first five Mars years of Mars Exploration Rover data provide an unprecedented record of the dust load at two sites. This record is useful for…
As winds blow over sand, grains are mobilized and reorganized into bedforms such as ripples and dunes. In turn, sand transport and bedforms affect the winds themselves. These complex interactions between winds and sediment render modeling…
To obtain the modelling of an ICP torch that can be used as a test case, we have to determine all the thermodynamic properties and transport coefficients. To calculate the data we have first to determine the composition and the collisions…
The photoionization-driven evaporation of planetary atmospheres has emerged as a potentially fundamental process for planets on short period orbits. While 1-D studies have proven the effectiveness of stellar fluxes at altering the…
Mars was characterized by cataclysmic groundwater-sourced surface flooding that formed large outflow channels and that may have altered the climate for extensive periods during the Hesperian era. In particular, it has been speculated that…
We employ the MarsWRF general circulation model (GCM) to test the predictions of a new physical hypothesis: a weak coupling of the orbital and rotational angular momenta of extended bodies is predicted to give rise to cycles of…
Mars lacks a global magnetic field, and instead possesses small-scale crustal magnetic fields, making its magnetic environment fundamentally different from intrinsic magnetospheres like those of Earth or Saturn. Here we report the discovery…
Radiative mixing layers arise wherever multiphase gas, shear, and radiative cooling are present. Simulations show that in steady state, thermal advection from the hot phase balances radiative cooling. However, many features are puzzling.…
The time variations of spectral properties of dark martian surface features are investigated using the OMEGA near-IR dataset. The analyzed period covers two Mars years, spanning from early 2004 to early 2008 (includes the 2007 global dust…
We examine the history of the loss and replenishment of the Martian atmosphere using elemental and isotopic compositions of nitrogen and noble gases. The evolution of the atmosphere is calculated by taking into consideration various…
Seasonal frosting and defrosting on the surface of Mars is hypothesized to drive both climate processes and the formation and evolution of geomorphological features such as gullies. Past studies have focused on manually analyzing the…
Numerous laboratory experiments, starting in the Viking Lander era, have reported that frictional interactions between Martian analog dust grains can catalyze electrostatic processes (i.e. triboelectrification). Such findings have been…
Using a general circulation model with newly implemented cloud modeling, we investigate how radiative feedback can self-consistently shape condensate cloud distributions, temperatures, and fluxes in a hot Jupiter atmosphere. We apply a…
The ratio of nitrogen isotopes in the Martian atmosphere is a key constraint on the planet's atmospheric evolution. However, enrichment of the heavy isotope expected due to atmospheric loss from sputtering and photochemical processes is…
A potential crewed mission to Mars would require us to solve a number of problems, including how to protect astronauts against the devastating effects of energetic charged particles from Solar and Galactic sources. The radiation environment…
Our earlier laboratory measurements showed that low-velocity sand impacts release fine <5 {\mu}m dust from a Martian simulant soil. This dust will become airborne in the Martian atmosphere. Here, we extend this study by measuring…
The Martian atmosphere experiences large diurnal variations due to the ~24.6 h planetary rotation and its low heat capacity. Understanding such variations on a planetary scale is limited due to the lack of observations, which are greatly…
The Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD), on board Mars Science Laboratory's (MSL) Curiosity rover, has been measuring ground level particle fluxes along with the radiation dose rate at the surface of Mars since August 2012. Similar to…
Mars today has no active volcanism and its atmosphere is oxidizing, dominated by the photochemistry of CO2 and H2O. Using a one-dimensional photochemical model, we consider whether plausible volcanic gas fluxes could have switched the…
Abundant geomorphological and geochemical evidence of liquid water on the surface of early Mars during the late Noachian and early Hesperian periods needs to be reconciled with a fainter young Sun. While a dense CO2 atmosphere and related…