IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-29DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116361
{"title":"Baroclinic waves observed on Mars from InSight data","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116361","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116361","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Baroclinic waves has been observed in the Martian atmosphere, and their periods have been calculated by means of spectral analysis of the pressure and wind velocity data, provided by the InSight mission for the time periods of the spring and winter seasons. For the spring time, the pressure spectrum shows a peak at the frequency of 0.246 (4 sol). For the winter time, the spectra of the pressure and wind velocity show a dominant peak at the frequency of ∼0.15 (6.7 sol), and a smaller peak at the frequency of ∼0.435 (2.3 sol). The results of this study are consistent with those determined in previous studies from spectral analysis of the Viking 2 data, and it is expected that a further analysis of the results determined in this study will provide a valuable insight into the seasonal changes of the atmospheric structure and circulation, which may be useful to fit General Circulation Models of the Martian atmosphere. However, a general understanding of Martian baroclinic phenomena only will be achieved with a combination of data from multiple Martian midlatitude stations in future missions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-24DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116351
{"title":"Changes in the longitude polarization dependence of Jupiter's moon Io as evidence of the long-term variability of its volcanic activity","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116351","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116351","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><strong>The aim of the work was to investigate the longitude (orbital) dependence of the polarization of Jupiter's moon Io and compare results of our study with what is reported in the literature.</strong> We used our published observations and supplemented them with new measurements carried out with the polarimeters mounted on the 2.6 m Shajn telescope of the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and the 2 m telescope of the Peak Terskol Observatory in the UBVRI bands at phase angles between 10° and 12° in August 2023 – February 2024. We have determined that amplitude of the orbital polarization in the V band does not exceed ≈0.1 %. It is the deepest −0.17 ± 0.03 % at L ≈ 270° and the shallowest −0.07 ± 0.03 % near L ≈ 130°. These parameters differ markedly from that obtained by <span><span>Zellner and Gradie (1975)</span></span>, which found that the orbital polarization variations from 0.4 to 0.5 % for α > 10°, and the negative branch is the deepest near L = 160° and the shallowest near L = 300°. These differences may be a consequence of changes in the reflective properties of the local areas of Io's surface due to long-term changes in Io's local or global volcanic activity.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-24DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116352
{"title":"New astrometric positions for six Jovian irregular satellites using Gaia DR3 in 2016 — 2021","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116352","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116352","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Jovian system is like a miniature solar system, with the system being more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined and having many natural satellites. Its formation and early evolution had a profound influence on our knowledge of the sculpting of the architecture of the solar system. Astrometric observations are of importance, based on these observations, its orbital dynamics, as well as its origin sometimes, of a solar system object can be determined. We aimed to obtain good astrometric positions of some irregular satellites Elara, Pasiphae, Sinope, Lysithea, Carme and Ananke to refine their orbits and ephemerides, and to understand their dynamics. We have taken, processed and reduced 964 ground-based CCD frames obtained between 2016 and 2021 by the 2.4 m telescope at the Lijiang Station of Yunnan Observatory over 27 nights. Among CCD image processing, the image subtraction technique of ISIS is employed to eliminate star images that are close to or/and almost overlapped with those of our targets in 2019. The star catalog Gaia DR3 is utilized for astrometric calibration, in which a weight scheme is applied to solve more accurate plate model. For all targets, their theoretical positions are retrieved from the Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Éphémérides (IMCCE) ephemeris. Our results show the mean (O - C)s (observed minus computed) of the positional residuals of all targets are <span><math><mrow><mo>−</mo><msup><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>′</mo><mo>′</mo></mrow></msup><mo>.</mo><mn>007</mn></mrow></math></span> and <span><math><mrow><msup><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>′</mo><mo>′</mo></mrow></msup><mo>.</mo><mn>011</mn></mrow></math></span> in R.A. and Dec., respectively. Their corresponding standard deviations are about <span><math><mrow><msup><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>′</mo><mo>′</mo></mrow></msup><mo>.</mo><mn>05</mn></mrow></math></span> in each direction, except for Ananke (the faintest satellite) with its standard deviation about <span><math><mrow><msup><mrow><mn>0</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>′</mo><mo>′</mo></mrow></msup><mo>.</mo><mn>08</mn></mrow></math></span> in each direction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142552390","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116345
{"title":"Ab initio strewn field for small asteroids impacts","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116345","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116345","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one metre in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs without causing damage. In some cases, several meteorites have been recovered. In cases like these, it is not always possible to triangulate the fireball generated by the asteroid’s fall to circumscribe the strewn field position. For this reason, it can be important to compute a strewn field “ab initio”, i.e. propagating the asteroid’s trajectory in the atmosphere starting from the initial conditions obtained directly from the heliocentric orbit, coupled with some reasonable hypothesis about the mean strength and the mass of the fragments to “sample” the strewn field. By adopting a simple fragmentation model coupled with a real atmospheric profile, useful results can be obtained to locate the strewn field, as we will show for the recent falls of asteroids 2024 BX1, 2023 CX1 and 2008 TC3. It was possible to locate the strewn field of our study cases with an uncertainty of the order of one kilometre with the mean strength in the range 0.5–5 MPa and the mass of the possible final fragments in the 1 g–1 kg range. We have also verified that a pancake phase after fragmentation is unnecessary to locate the strewn field for a small asteroid fall.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142539241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116343
{"title":"Expected constraints on Phobos interior from the MMX gravity and rotation observations","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116343","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116343","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The origin of the Martian moons is still uncertain, and knowledge about their interior could provide support to some of its leading theories. In preparation for the JAXA Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission, we review our current knowledge on the interior of Phobos, and provide synthetic tests showing how the gravity and rotation determination could allow the detection of specific interior-structure properties. The inversion of the geodetic observables for the retrieval of the internal mass distribution of a set of synthetic interior models is performed via non-linear least-squares, where the interior parameterization is based on the level-set method. We additionally provide simple expressions allowing to relate some of these interior models to the geodetic observables of Phobos. The results, based on realistic measurement resolution and noise scenarios, show good retrievals for most of the models at the data resolutions expected from MMX. Specifically, we find the gravity information is realistically sufficient for the detection of mass anomalies below the Stickney crater, as well as large scale heterogeneous regions within plausible rubble-pile structures. Libration helps retrieve the more degenerate models for gravity, such as those with concentric layers or with density varying linearly with depth. The incremental improvement from further adding a hypothetical mean obliquity measurement is marginal. Finally, we apply the level-set inversion and the analytical formulas to estimate possible interior characteristics of the ‘real’ Phobos from the currently-available scarce geodetic observables. The level-set solutions for the real-data inversion generally converge to a higher mass concentration towards the surface in the equatorial region. Markov chain Monte Carlo estimations of parameters relative to a simple 2-layer model or a radial density distribution similarly hint at a lighter region inside of Phobos.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142552053","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-21DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116355
{"title":"Rare earth element assessment in Jezero crater using the Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry on the Mars 2020 rover Perseverance: A case study of cerium","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116355","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116355","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The “Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry” (PIXL) X-ray spectrometer conducts in situ geochemical analyses of martian rocks and regolith interrogated by the Mars 2020 rover, <em>Perseverance</em>. In addition to quantifying primary rock-forming elements, PIXL can quantify trace elements that in turn can provide additional constraints on the geologic history of Mars. Accurate quantifications of trace elements can require additional analytical techniques to mitigate experimental, background, and crystalline effects within PIXL spectra. In this study, we focus on reducing the impact of these effects and investigate the potential presence of rare earth elements (REEs). The study specifically investigates cerium given its typical relative abundance in many geologic materials compared to other REEs and its potential to mimic fluorescence features produced by organics under deep UV excitation. A detailed analysis of PIXL targets analyzed through the first 887 martian days of the <em>Perseverance</em> mission did not produce any conclusive Ce detections. Phosphorus-enriched materials analyzed by PIXL are estimated to contain sub-675 ppm Ce and sulfate-enriched materials sub-450 ppm Ce. The method presented can help constrain limits on the abundance of additional trace elements of interest that also face a similar analytical burden. PIXL's potential to assess REE abundances, outside of yttrium, is limited for expected concentrations in surface materials. Determining most REE concentrations in materials interrogated by <em>Perseverance</em> will therefore likely require terrestrial analyses.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142539239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-20DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116354
{"title":"Density of Uranus moons: Evidence for ice/rock fractionation during planetary accretion","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116354","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116354","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Current models suggest the five regular moons of Uranus formed in a single stage from a primary planetary disk or a secondary impact disk. Using latest estimates of moon masses (Jacobson, 2014), we find a power-law relationship between size and density of the moons due to varying rock/ice ratios caused by fractionation processes. This relationship is better explained by mild enrichment of rock with respect to ice in the solids that aggregate to form the moons following Rayleigh law for distillation (Rayleigh, 1896) than by differential diffusion in the disk, although the two mechanisms are not exclusive. Rayleigh fractionation requires that moon composition and density reflect their order of formation in a closed-system circumplanetary disk. For Uranus, the largest and densest moons Titania and Oberon (R ∼ 788 and 761 km, respectively) first formed, then the mid-sized Umbriel and Ariel (585 and 579 km), satellites in each pair forming simultaneously with similar composition, and finally the small rock-depleted Miranda (236 km). Fractionation likely occurred through impact vaporization during planetesimal accretion. This mechanism would add to those affecting the composition of accreting planets and moons in disks such as temporal/spatial variation of disk composition due to temperature gradients, advection, and large impacts. In the outer solar nebula, Rayleigh fractionation may account for the separation of a rock-dominated reservoir, and an ice-dominated reservoir, currently represented by CI carbonaceous chondrite/type-C asteroids and comets, respectively. Potential consequences for Uranus moons' composition are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142539456","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-19DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116346
{"title":"Vision Transformers for identifying asteroids interacting with secular resonances","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116346","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116346","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Currently, more than 1.4 million asteroids are known in the main belt. Future surveys, like those that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will perform, may increase this number to up to 8 million. While in the past identification of asteroids interacting with secular resonances was performed by a visual analysis of images of resonant arguments, this method is no longer feasible in the age of big data. Deep learning methods based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been used in the recent past to automatically classify databases of several thousands of images of resonant arguments for resonances like the <span><math><msub><mrow><mi>ν</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>6</mn></mrow></msub></math></span>, the <span><math><mrow><mi>g</mi><mo>−</mo><mn>2</mn><msub><mrow><mi>g</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>6</mn></mrow></msub><mo>+</mo><msub><mrow><mi>g</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>5</mn></mrow></msub></mrow></math></span>, and the <span><math><mrow><mi>s</mi><mo>−</mo><msub><mrow><mi>s</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>6</mn></mrow></msub><mo>−</mo><msub><mrow><mi>g</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>5</mn></mrow></msub><mo>+</mo><msub><mrow><mi>g</mi></mrow><mrow><mn>6</mn></mrow></msub></mrow></math></span>. However, it has been shown that computer vision methods based on the Transformer architecture tend to outperform CNN models if the scale of the image database is large enough. Here, for the first time, we developed a Vision Transformer (ViT) model and applied it to publicly available databases for the three secular resonances quoted above. ViT architecture outperforms CNN models in speed and accuracy while avoiding overfitting concerns. If hyper-parameter tuning research is undertaken for each analyzed database, ViT models should be preferred over CNN architectures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142539240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-19DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116350
{"title":"A global colour mosaic of Mars from Mars Express HRSC high altitude observations","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116350","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116350","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The ever-changing transparency of the Martian atmosphere hinders the determination of absolute surface colour from spacecraft images. While individual high-resolution images from low orbit reveal numerous colour details of the geology, the colour variation between images caused by scattering off atmospheric dust can easily be of greater magnitude. The construction of contiguous large-scale mosaics has thus required a strategy to suppress the influence of scattering, often a form of high-pass filtering, which limits their ability to convey colour variation information over distances greater than the dimensions of single images. Here we use a dedicated high altitude observation campaign with the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) (Neukum and Jaumann, 2004; Jaumann et al., 2007), applying a novel iterative method to construct a globally self-consistent colour model. We apply the model to colour-reference a high-altitude mosaic incorporating long-range colour variation information. Using only the relative colour information internal to individual images, the influence of absolute image to image colour changes caused by scattering is minimised, while the model enables colour variations across image boundaries to be self-consistently reconstructed. The resulting mosaic shows a level of colour detail comparable to single images, while maintaining continuity of colour features over much greater distances, thereby increasing the utility of HRSC colour images in the tracing and analysis of martian surface structures.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142539238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
IcarusPub Date : 2024-10-18DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116347
{"title":"Principal-plane BRDF of CO2 ice morphologies in controlled Mars polar conditions","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116347","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.icarus.2024.116347","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Mars South Polar Residual Cap (SPRC) persists throughout the Southern hemisphere's warmest months. During the colder seasons, carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) accumulates as ice on the surface of the planet, forming a seasonal cap during fall and winter and sublimating throughout spring. The seasonal cap and SPRC both exhibit unexpected reflectance properties that have not been explained. To better understand the Martian surface CO<sub>2</sub> ice and how it affects Mars' geomorphology, atmosphere, and climate, it is imperative to corroborate laboratory experiments with orbital observations. This study uses a custom-designed goniometer for making reflectance measurements within the MARs Volatile and Ice evolutioN (MARVIN) environmental chamber, in which we can measure the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) of different phases of CO<sub>2</sub> under Mars polar conditions for the first time. This has the potential to explain present-day observations from orbit and enhance our understanding of the evolution of ice on Mars.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":13199,"journal":{"name":"Icarus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2024-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142560983","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"物理与天体物理","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}