相关论文: Rapid hydrofracture of icy moon shells: insights f…
Chaos terrains are characterized by disruption of preexisting surfaces into irregularly arranged mountain blocks with a chaotic appearance. Several models for chaos formation have been proposed, but the formation and evolution of this…
A number of synchronous moons are thought to harbor water oceans beneath their outer ice shells. A subsurface ocean frictionally decouples the shell from the interior. This has led to proposals that a weak tidal or atmospheric torque might…
Planets are often covered with thin cracked shells. From mud films to lithospheres of rock or ice, fracture networks form two-dimensional (2D) tessellations of convex polygons whose geometry encodes their genesis. Here we chart the geometry…
We study the transport of methane in the external water envelopes surrounding water-rich super-Earths and estimate its outgassing into the atmosphere. We investigate the influence of methane on the thermodynamics and mechanics of the water…
Fractures are a critical process in how materials wear, weaken, and fail whose unpredictable behavior can have dire consequences. While the behavior of smooth cracks in ideal materials is well understood, it is assumed that for real,…
Regions of fast-flowing ice in ice sheets, known as ice streams, have been theorized to be able to exhibit build-up/surge oscillatory variability due to thermomechanical coupling at the base of the ice. A simple model of three coupled ice…
The ice shell on Enceladus, an icy moon of Saturn, exhibits strong asymmetry between the northern and southern hemispheres, with all known geysers concentrated over the south pole, even though the expected pattern of tidal-rotational…
One of the clearest but unresolved questions for Europa is the thickness of its icy shell. Europa's surface is resplendent with geological features that bear on this question, and ultimately on its interior, geological history, and…
The deep (~100 km) ocean of Europa, Jupiter's moon, covered by a thick icy shell, is one of the most probable places in the solar system to find extraterrestrial life. Yet, its ocean dynamics and its interaction with the ice cover have…
Magma ocean crystallisation sets up the early structure and long-term evolution of terrestrial planets. Recent seismic evidence signals the presence of a silicate layer at the base of Mars' mantle. Magma-ocean crystallisation and subsequent…
The ever-expanding catalog of detected super-Earths calls for theoretical studies of their properties in the case of a substantial water layer. This work considers such water planets with a range of masses and water mass fractions (2 to 5…
The impact heat accumulated during the late stage of planetary accretion can melt a significant part or even the entire mantle of a terrestrial body, giving rise to a global magma ocean. [...] Assuming fractional crystallization of the…
Hesperian chaotic terrains have been recognized as the source of outflow channels formed by catastrophic outflows. Four main scenarios have been proposed for the formation of chaotic terrains that involve different amounts of water and…
Terrestrial planets are thought to experience episode(s) of large-scale melting early in their history. Fractionation during magma-ocean freezing leads to unstable stratification within the related cumulate layers due to progressive iron…
Ridge-and-trough terrain is a common landform on outer Solar System icy satellites. Examples include Ganymede's grooved terrain, Europa's gray bands, Miranda's coronae, and several terrains on Enceladus. The conditions associated with the…
Large terrestrial planets are expected to have muted topography and deep oceans, implying that most super-Earths should be entirely covered in water, so-called waterworlds. This is important because waterworlds lack a silicate weathering…
Active eruptions from the south polar region of Saturn's small (~500 km diameter) moon Enceladus are concentrated along a series of lineaments known as the `tiger stripes', thought to be partially open fissures that connect to the liquid…
A reactive fluid dissolving the surface of a uniform fracture will trigger an instability in the dissolution front, leading to spontaneous formation of pronounced well-spaced channels in the surrounding rock matrix. Although the underlying…
Recent step strain experiments in well-entangled polymeric liquids demonstrated a bulk fracture-like phenomenon. We have studied this instability using a modern version of the Doi-Edwards theory for entangled polymers, and we find close…
Europa's interior is expected to be divided into the metallic core, rocky mantle and hydrosphere based on the moment of inertia factor estimated from gravity field measurements. Specifically, the thickness of the outermost water layer is…