40 research outputs found
WISE/NEOWISE Observations of the Jovian Trojans: Preliminary Results
We present the preliminary analysis of over 1739 known and 349 candidate
Jovian Trojans observed by the NEOWISE component of the Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (WISE). With this survey the available diameters, albedos and
beaming parameters for the Jovian Trojans have been increased by more than an
order of magnitude compared to previous surveys. We find that the Jovian Trojan
population is very homogenous for sizes larger than km (close to the
detection limit of WISE for these objects). The observed sample consists almost
exclusively of low albedo objects, having a mean albedo value of .
The beaming parameter was also derived for a large fraction of the observed
sample, and it is also very homogenous with an observed mean value of
. Preliminary debiasing of the survey shows our observed sample is
consistent with the leading cloud containing more objects than the trailing
cloud. We estimate the fraction to be N(leading)/N(trailing) , lower than the value derived by others.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal. Electronic table
will be available at the publishers websit
Making the Earth: Combining Dynamics and Chemistry in the Solar System
No terrestrial planet formation simulation completed to date has considered
the detailed chemical composition of the planets produced. While many have
considered possible water contents and late veneer compositions, none have
examined the bulk elemental abundances of the planets produced as an important
check of formation models. Here we report on the first study of this type. Bulk
elemental abundances based on disk equilibrium studies have been determined for
the simulated terrestrial planets of O'Brien et al. (2006). These abundances
are in excellent agreement with observed planetary values, indicating that the
models of O'Brien et al. (2006) are successfully producing planets comparable
to those of the Solar System in terms of both their dynamical and chemical
properties. Significant amounts of water are accreted in the present
simulations, implying that the terrestrial planets form "wet" and do not need
significant water delivery from other sources. Under the assumption of
equilibrium controlled chemistry, the biogenic species N and C still need to be
delivered to the Earth as they are not accreted in significant proportions
during the formation process. Negligible solar photospheric pollution is
produced by the planetary formation process. Assuming similar levels of
pollution in other planetary systems, this in turn implies that the high
metallicity trend observed in extrasolar planetary systems is in fact
primordial.Comment: 61 pages (including online material), 12 figures (7 in paper, 5
online). Accepted to Icaru
On the dynamics of planetesimals embedded in turbulent protoplanetary discs
(abridged) Angular momentum transport and accretion in protoplanetary discs
are generally believed to be driven by MHD turbulence via the
magneto-rotational instability (MRI). The dynamics of solid bodies embedded in
such discs (dust grains, boulders, planetesimals and planets) may be strongly
affected by the turbulence, such that the formation pathways for planetary
systems are determined in part by the strength and spatial distribution of the
turbulent flow.
We examine the dynamics of planetesimals, with radii between 1m \^a 10 km,
embedded in turbulent protoplanetary discs, using three dimensional MHD
simulations. The planetesimals experience gas drag and stochastic gravitational
forces due to the turbulent disc. We use, and compare the results from, local
shearing box simulations and global models in this study.
The main aims of this work are to examine: the growth, and possible
saturation, of the velocity dispersion of embedded planetesimals as a function
of their size and disc parameters; the rate of radial migration and diffusion
of planetesimals; the conditions under which the results from shearing box and
global simulations agree.
We find good agreement between local and global simulations when shearing
boxes of dimension 4H x 16H x 2H are used (H being the local scale height). The
magnitude of the density fluctuations obtained is sensitive to the box size,
due to the excitation and propagation of spiral density waves. This affects the
stochastic forcing experienced by planetesimals. [...]
Our models show that fully developed MHD turbulence in protoplanetary discs
would have a destructive effect on embedded planetesimals. Relatively low
levels of turbulence are required for traditional models of planetesimal
accretion to operate, this being consistent with the existence of a dead zone
in protoplanetary discs.Comment: 23 pages, 28 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA
On the dynamics of planetesimals embedded in turbulent protoplanetary discs with dead zones
(abridged) Accretion in protoplanetary discs is thought to be driven by [...]
turbulence via the magnetorotational instability (MRI). Recent work has shown
that a planetesimal swarm embedded in a fully turbulent disc is subject to
strong excitation of the velocity dispersion, leading to collisional
destruction of bodies with radii R_p < 100 km. Significant diffusion of
planetesimal semimajor axes also arises, leading to large-scale spreading of
the planetesimal population throughout the inner regions of the protoplanetary
disc, in apparent contradiction of constraints provided by the distribution of
asteroids within the asteroid belt. In this paper, we examine the dynamics of
planetesimals embedded in vertically stratified turbulent discs, with and
without dead zones. Our main aims are to examine the turbulent excitation of
the velocity dispersion, and the radial diffusion, of planetesimals in these
discs. We employ three dimensional MHD simulations [...], along with an
equilibrium chemistry model [...] We find that planetesimals in fully turbulent
discs develop large random velocities that will lead to collisional
destruction/erosion for bodies with sizes below 100 km, and undergo radial
diffusion on a scale \sim 2.5 au over a 5 Myr disc life time. But planetesimals
in a dead zone experience a much reduced excitation of their random velocities,
and equilibrium velocity dispersions lie between the disruption thresholds for
weak and strong aggregates for sizes R_p < 100 km. We also find that radial
diffusion occurs over a much reduced length scale \sim 0.25 au over the disc
life time, this being consistent with solar system constraints. We conclude
that planetesimal growth via mutual collisions between smaller bodies cannot
occur in a fully turbulent disc. By contrast, a dead zone may provide a safe
haven in which km-sized planetesimals can avoid mutual destruction through
collisions.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figures, 3 tables, MNRAS in press, minor corrections to
match the published versio
Partitioning of Minimotifs Based on Function with Improved Prediction Accuracy
Background: Minimotifs are short contiguous peptide sequences in proteins that are known to have a function in at least one other protein. One of the principal limitations in minimotif prediction is that false positives limit the usefulness of this approach. As a step toward resolving this problem we have built, implemented, and tested a new data-driven algorithm that reduces false-positive predictions. Methodology/Principal Findings: Certain domains and minimotifs are known to be strongly associated with a known cellular process or molecular function. Therefore, we hypothesized that by restricting minimotif predictions to those where the minimotif containing protein and target protein have a related cellular or molecular function, the prediction is more likely to be accurate. This filter was implemented in Minimotif Miner using function annotations from the Gene Ontology. We have also combined two filters that are based on entirely different principles and this combined filter has a better predictability than the individual components. Conclusions/Significance: Testing these functional filters on known and random minimotifs has revealed that they are capable of separating true motifs from false positives. In particular, for the cellular function filter, the percentage of known minimotifs that are not removed by the filter is,4.6 times that of random minimotifs. For the molecular function filter this ratio is,2.9. These results, together with the comparison with the published frequency score filter, strongly suggest tha
Saturn's icy satellites and rings investigated by Cassini - VIMS. III. Radial compositional variability
In the last few years Cassini-VIMS, the Visible and Infared Mapping
Spectrometer, returned to us a comprehensive view of the Saturn's icy
satellites and rings. After having analyzed the satellites' spectral properties
(Filacchione et al. (2007a)) and their distribution across the satellites'
hemispheres (Filacchione et al. (2010)), we proceed in this paper to
investigate the radial variability of icy satellites (principal and minor) and
main rings average spectral properties. This analysis is done by using 2,264
disk-integrated observations of the satellites and a 12x700 pixels-wide rings
radial mosaic acquired with a spatial resolution of about 125 km/pixel. The
comparative analysis of these data allows us to retrieve the amount of both
water ice and red contaminant materials distributed across Saturn's system and
the typical surface regolith grain sizes. These measurements highlight very
striking differences in the population here analyzed, which vary from the
almost uncontaminated and water ice-rich surfaces of Enceladus and Calypso to
the metal/organic-rich and red surfaces of Iapetus' leading hemisphere and
Phoebe. Rings spectra appear more red than the icy satellites in the visible
range but show more intense 1.5-2.0 micron band depths. The correlations among
spectral slopes, band depths, visual albedo and phase permit us to cluster the
saturnian population in different spectral classes which are detected not only
among the principal satellites and rings but among co-orbital minor moons as
well. Finally, we have applied Hapke's theory to retrieve the best spectral
fits to Saturn's inner regular satellites using the same methodology applied
previously for Rhea data discussed in Ciarniello et al. (2011).Comment: 44 pages, 27 figures, 7 tables. Submitted to Icaru
Minimotif miner 2nd release: a database and web system for motif search
Minimotif Miner (MnM) consists of a minimotif database and a web-based application that enables prediction of motif-based functions in user-supplied protein queries. We have revised MnM by expanding the database more than 10-fold to approximately 5000 motifs and standardized the motif function definitions. The web-application user interface has been redeveloped with new features including improved navigation, screencast-driven help, support for alias names and expanded SNP analysis. A sample analysis of prion shows how MnM 2 can be used. Weblink: http://mnm.engr.uconn.edu, weblink for version 1 is http://sms.engr.uconn.edu
WISE/NEOWISE Observations of the Hilda Population: Preliminary Results
We present the preliminary analysis of 1023 known asteroids in the Hilda
region of the Solar System observed by the NEOWISE component of the Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The sizes of the Hildas observed range from
km. We find no size - albedo dependency as reported by other
projects. The albedos of our sample are low, with a weighted mean value , for all sizes sampled by the NEOWISE survey. We observed a
significant fraction of the objects in the two known collisional families in
the Hilda population. It is found that the Hilda collisional family is
brighter, with weighted mean albedo of , than the general
population and dominated by D-type asteroids, while the Schubart collisional
family is darker, with weighted mean albedo of (). Using
the reflected sunlight in the two shortest WISE bandpasses we are able to
derive a method for taxonomic classification of of the Hildas
detected in the NEOWISE survey. For the Hildas with diameter larger than 30km
there are D-type asteroids and C-/P-type
asteroids (with the majority of these being P-types).Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal. Electronic table
to be published on the publishers websit
Exploring the Bimodal Solar System via Sample Return from the Main Asteroid Belt: The Case for Revisiting Ceres
Abstract: Sample return from a main-belt asteroid has not yet been attempted, but appears technologically feasible. While the cost implications are significant, the scientific case for such a mission appears overwhelming. As suggested by the “Grand Tack” model, the structure of the main belt was likely forged during the earliest stages of Solar System evolution in response to migration of the giant planets. Returning samples from the main belt has the potential to test such planet migration models and the related geochemical and isotopic concept of a bimodal Solar System. Isotopic studies demonstrate distinct compositional differences between samples believed to be derived from the outer Solar System (CC or carbonaceous chondrite group) and those that are thought to be derived from the inner Solar System (NC or non-carbonaceous group). These two groups are separated on relevant isotopic variation diagrams by a clear compositional gap. The interface between these two regions appears to be broadly coincident with the present location of the asteroid belt, which contains material derived from both groups. The Hayabusa mission to near-Earth asteroid (NEA) (25143) Itokawa has shown what can be learned from a sample-return mission to an asteroid, even with a very small amount of sample. One scenario for main-belt sample return involves a spacecraft launching a projectile that strikes an object and flying through the debris cloud, which would potentially allow multiple bodies to be sampled if a number of projectiles are used on different asteroids. Another scenario is the more traditional method of landing on an asteroid to obtain the sample. A significant range of main-belt asteroids are available as targets for a sample-return mission and such a mission would represent a first step in mineralogically and isotopically mapping the asteroid belt. We argue that a sample-return mission to the asteroid belt does not necessarily have to return material from both the NC and CC groups to viably test the bimodal Solar System paradigm, as material from the NC group is already abundantly available for study. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that we have a very incomplete suite of CC-related samples. Based on our analysis, we advocate a dedicated sample-return mission to the dwarf planet (1) Ceres as the best means of further exploring inherent Solar System variation. Ceres is an ice-rich world that may be a displaced trans-Neptunian object. We almost certainly do not have any meteorites that closely resemble material that would be brought back from Ceres. The rich heritage of data acquired by the Dawn mission makes a sample-return mission from Ceres logistically feasible at a realistic cost. No other potential main-belt target is capable of providing as much insight into the early Solar System as Ceres. Such a mission should be given the highest priority by the international scientific community