Related papers: Disk-averaged synthetic spectra of Mars
We are using computer models to explore the observational sensitivity to changes in atmospheric and surface properties, and the detectability of biosignatures, in the globally averaged spectra and light-curves of the Earth. Using AIRS…
The mission of NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) is to find Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and characterize the atmospheres of these planets using spectroscopy. Because of the enormous brightness ratio between the star and the…
For the first time in human history the possibility of detecting and studying Earth-like planets is on the horizon. Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF), with a launch date in the 2015 timeframe, is being planned by NASA to find and characterize…
We have obtained the first continuous disk averaged spectrum of Mars from 450 to 1550 Ghz using the Herschel-SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer. The spectrum was obtained at a constant resolution of 1.4 GHz across the whole band. The flux…
The photometric properties of the surface of Mars describe how remote measurements of surface reflectance can be linked to hemispherical albedo used for energy balance calculations. A simple Lambert model is frequently assumed for global…
The two Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) missions aim to perform spectroscopy on extrasolar Earths; TPF-C will operate in visible light, and TPF-I will operate in the mid-infrared. Extrasolar Earths are assumed to be roughly 26 magnitude in…
Current plans call for the first Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, TPF-C, to be a monolithic space telescope with a coronagraph for achieving high contrast. The coronagraph removes the diffracted starlight allowing the nearby planet to be…
One of the frontier research fields of exoplanetary science is the study of the composition and variability of exoplanetary atmospheres. This field is now moving from the gas giant planets towards the smaller and colder telluric planets,…
This paper presents an application of artificial intelligence on mass spectrometry data for detecting habitability potential of ancient Mars. Although data was collected for planet Mars the same approach can be replicated for any…
The Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) onboard Mars Express (MEx) is the instrument with the highest spectral resolution observing Mars from orbit since January 2004. It permits studying the atmospheric structure, major and minor…
Transit spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing atmospheric structures of exoplanets. Accurately accounting for the effects of aerosols is key to reconstructing atmospheric properties from transit spectra, yet this remains a significant…
We present the results of an extensive study of the final stage of terrestrial planet formation in disks with different surface density profiles and for different orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. We carried out simulations for disk densities…
The capability of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Interferometer (TPF-I) for planetary signal extraction, including both detection and spectral characterization, can be optimized by taking proper account of instrumental characteristics and…
The aim of this work is to introduce MaRF, a novel framework able to synthesize the Martian environment using several collections of images from rover cameras. The idea is to generate a 3D scene of Mars' surface to address key challenges in…
A new model has been developed to estimate the dielectric constant of the lunar surface using Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Continuous investigation on the dielectric constant of the lunar surface is a high priority task due to…
Dwarf-planet (1) Ceres is one of the two targets, along with (4) Vesta, that will be studied by the NASA Dawn spacecraft via imaging, visible and near-infrared spectroscopy, and gamma-ray and neutron spectroscopy. While Ceres' visible and…
The quest for other habitable worlds and the search for life among them are major goals of modern astronomy. One way to make progress towards these goals is to obtain high-quality spectra of a large number of exoplanets over a broad range…
We investigate the influence of lunar-like satellites on the infrared orbital light curves of Earth-analog extra-solar planets. Such light curves will be obtained by NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) and ESA's Darwin missions as a…
One of the great quests of astronomy is to obtain the spectrum of a terrestrial planet orbiting within the habitable zone of its star, and the dominant challenge in doing so is to isolate the light of the planet from that of the star.…
Space-based direct imaging provides prospects for detection and spectral characterization of exoplanets at optical and near-infrared wavelengths. Integral field spectrographs (IFS) have been historically baselined for these mission…