1,067 research outputs found
SPICES: Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary Systems
SPICES (Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging and Characterization of Exoplanetary
Systems) is a five-year M-class mission proposed to ESA Cosmic Vision. Its
purpose is to image and characterize long-period extrasolar planets and
circumstellar disks in the visible (450 - 900 nm) at a spectral resolution of
about 40 using both spectroscopy and polarimetry. By 2020/22, present and
near-term instruments will have found several tens of planets that SPICES will
be able to observe and study in detail. Equipped with a 1.5 m telescope, SPICES
can preferentially access exoplanets located at several AUs (0.5-10 AU) from
nearby stars (25 pc) with masses ranging from a few Jupiter masses to Super
Earths (2 Earth radii, 10 M) as well as circumstellar
disks as faint as a few times the zodiacal light in the Solar System
Protons in near earth orbit
The proton spectrum in the kinetic energy range 0.1 to 200 GeV was measured
by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) during space shuttle flight STS-91 at
an altitude of 380 km. Above the geomagnetic cutoff the observed spectrum is
parameterized by a power law. Below the geomagnetic cutoff a substantial second
spectrum was observed concentrated at equatorial latitudes with a flux ~ 70
m^-2 sec^-1 sr^-1. Most of these second spectrum protons follow a complicated
trajectory and originate from a restricted geographic region.Comment: 19 pages, Latex, 7 .eps figure
Search for antihelium in cosmic rays
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) was flown on the space shuttle
Discovery during flight STS-91 in a 51.7 degree orbit at altitudes between 320
and 390 km. A total of 2.86 * 10^6 helium nuclei were observed in the rigidity
range 1 to 140 GV. No antihelium nuclei were detected at any rigidity. An upper
limit on the flux ratio of antihelium to helium of < 1.1 * 10^-6 is obtained.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, 9 .eps figure
Isotopic Composition of Light Nuclei in Cosmic Rays: Results from AMS-01
The variety of isotopes in cosmic rays allows us to study different aspects
of the processes that cosmic rays undergo between the time they are produced
and the time of their arrival in the heliosphere. In this paper we present
measurements of the isotopic ratios 2H/4He, 3He/4He, 6Li/7Li, 7Be/(9Be+10Be)
and 10B/11B in the range 0.2-1.4 GeV of kinetic energy per nucleon. The
measurements are based on the data collected by the Alpha Magnetic
Spectrometer, AMS-01, during the STS-91 flight in 1998 June.Comment: To appear in ApJ. 12 pages, 11 figures, 6 table
A Study of Cosmic Ray Secondaries Induced by the Mir Space Station Using AMS-01
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS-02) is a high energy particle physics
experiment that will study cosmic rays in the to range and will be installed on the International Space Station
(ISS) for at least 3 years. A first version of AMS-02, AMS-01, flew aboard the
space shuttle \emph{Discovery} from June 2 to June 12, 1998, and collected
cosmic ray triggers. Part of the \emph{Mir} space station was within the
AMS-01 field of view during the four day \emph{Mir} docking phase of this
flight. We have reconstructed an image of this part of the \emph{Mir} space
station using secondary and emissions from primary cosmic rays
interacting with \emph{Mir}. This is the first time this reconstruction was
performed in AMS-01, and it is important for understanding potential
backgrounds during the 3 year AMS-02 mission.Comment: To be submitted to NIM B Added material requested by referee. Minor
stylistic and grammer change
Seismic Constraints on the Thickness and Structure of the Martian Crust from InSight
NASA¿s InSight mission [1] has for
the first time placed a very broad-band seismometer on
the surface of Mars. The Seismic Experiment for
Interior Structure (SEIS) [2] has been collecting
continuous data since early February 2019. The main
focus of InSight is to enhance our understanding of the
internal structure and dynamics of Mars, which includes
the goal to better constrain the crustal thickness of the
planet [3]. Knowing the present-day crustal thickness of
Mars has important implications for its thermal
evolution [4] as well as for the partitioning of silicates
and heat-producing elements between the different
layers of Mars. Current estimates for the crustal
thickness of Mars are based on modeling the
relationship between topography and gravity [5,6], but
these studies rely on different assumptions, e.g. on the
density of the crust and upper mantle, or the bulk silicate
composition of the planet and the crust. The resulting
values for the average crustal thickness differ by more
than 100%, from 30 km to more than 100 km [7].
New independent constraints from InSight will be
based on seismically determining the crustal thickness
at the landing site. This single firm measurement of
crustal thickness at one point on the planet will allow to
constrain both the average crustal thickness of Mars as
well as thickness variations across the planet when
combined with constraints from gravity and topography
[8]. Here we describe the determination of the crustal
structure and thickness at the InSight landing site based
on seismic receiver functions for three marsquakes
compared with autocorrelations of InSight data [9].We acknowledge NASA, CNES, partner agencies and institutions (UKSA, SSO,DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, MPS-MPG) and the operators of JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data. InSight data is archived in the PDS, and a full list of archives in the Geosciences, Atmospheres, and Imaging nodes is at https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/insight/. This work was partially carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. ©2021, California Institute of Technology. Government sponsorship acknowledge
Seismic detection of the martian core
Clues to a planet's geologic history are contained in its interior structure, particularly its core. We detected reflections of seismic waves from the core-mantle boundary of Mars using InSight seismic data and inverted these together with geodetic data to constrain the radius of the liquid metal core to 1830 +/- 40 kilometers. The large core implies a martian mantle mineralogically similar to the terrestrial upper mantle and transition zone but differing from Earth by not having a bridgmanite-dominated lower mantle. We inferred a mean core density of 5.7 to 6.3 grams per cubic centimeter, which requires a substantial complement of light elements dissolved in the iron-nickel core. The seismic core shadow as seen from InSight's location covers half the surface of Mars, including the majority of potentially active regions-e.g., Tharsis-possibly limiting the number of detectable marsquakes.This is InSight contribution 200. We acknowledge NASA, CNES, and partner agencies and institutions (UKSA, SSO, ESA-PRODEX, DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, and MPS-MPG) for the development of SEIS. Numerical simulations were supported by a grant from the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) under project ID s922 as well as HPC resources of CINES under the allocation A0090407341, made by GENCI. We thank B. Dintrans, director of CINES, for his efficient handling of our request for computational time. Figures were created using matplotlib (83), seismic data processing was done in ObsPy (84), and numerical evaluation was done in NumPy and SciPy (85, 86). Funding: S.C.S., A.K., D.G., J.C., A.C.D., G.Z., and N.D. acknowledge support from ETHZ through the ETH+ funding scheme (ETH+2 19-1: “Planet MARS”). S.C.S. acknowledges funding from ETH research grant ETH-10 17-3. W.B.B., A.G.M., M.P.P., and S.E.S. were supported by the NASA InSight mission and funds from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). D.A. has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement 724690). The French teams acknowledge support from CNES as well as Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-14-CE36-0012-02 and ANR-19-CE31-0008-08). A.R. was financially supported by the Belgian PRODEX program managed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. M.S. wishes to thank SANIMS (RTI2018-095594-B-I00). M.v.D. received support from the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 program (grant no. 714069). D.S. and C.S. acknowledge funding from ETH research grant ETH-06 17-02. J.C.E.I. acknowledges support from NASA grant 80NSSC18K1633. N.S., D.K., Q.H., R.M., V.L., and A.G.M. acknowledge NASA grant 80NSSC18K1628 for support. V.L. acknowledges support from the Packard Foundation. W.T.P. and C.C. received funding from the UK Space Agency, grant ST/S001239/1. A.H. was funded by the UK Space Agency (grant ST/R002096/1). A.-C.P. acknowledges the financial support and endorsement from the DLR Management Board Young Research Group Leader Program and the Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. Author contributions: S.C.S., D.G., S.C., R.F.G., Q.H., D.K., V.L., M.S., N.S., D.S., É.S., C.S., and G.Z. analyzed the seismic data and made ScS arrival time picks. S.C.S., P.L., D.G., Z.X., C.C., and W.T.P. performed the statistical analysis of the observed signals. S.C.S., Q.H., N.S., R.M., and A.G.M. identified the arrivals as ScS waves based on interior models from A.K., H.S., and A.R. A.K., M.D., A.C.D., and H.S. performed the inversions. S.C.S., A.K., P.L., D.G., D.A., J.C.E.I., M.K., C.P., A.-C.P., A.R., T.G., and S.E.S. participated and contributed to the interpretation of the results. Review of the continuous data and detection of marsquakes was done by S.C.S., S.C., G.Z., C.C., N.D., J.C., M.v.D., T.K., M.P., and A.H. with operational support by É.B., C.P., and P.M.D. S.C.S. and A.K. wrote the central part of the paper with contributions from H.S., N.S., D.A., J.C.E.I., A.G.M., A.-C.P., A.R., J.C., and M.v.D. J.C.E.I., R.M., M.K., and V.L. reviewed the contributions to the supplementary materials. The InSight mission is managed by W.B.B., M.P.P., and S.E.S. The SEIS instrument development was led by P.L., D.G., W.T.P., and W.B.B. Supplementary section 1 was written by M.S., D.S., and É.S. with contributions from S.C.S., C.S., and Z.X. Supplementary section 2 was written by D.K. and V.L. with contributions from J.C.E.I. and N.S. Supplementary section 3 was written by M.S. and É.S. Supplementary section 4 was written by R.F.G. with contributions from M.D. Supplementary section 5 was written by Q.H. with contributions from N.S. Supplementary section 6 was written by S.C.S. with contributions from the authors of the other supplements. Supplementary section 7 was written by Z.X. and C.C. with contributions from P.L. and W.T.P. Supplementary section 8 was written by A.K., M.D., A.C.D., and H.S. Supplementary section 9 was written by M.D. Supplementary section 10 was written by A.C.D., A.K., and M.D. Supplementary section 11 was written by D.A. and A.R. with contributions from A.K. Competing interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Data and materials availability: We thank the operators of JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC, and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data (87). Three hundred interior models derived in this study are available from MSDS (88)
The interior of Mars as seen by InSight (Invited)
InSight is the first planetary mission dedicated to exploring the whole interior of a planet using geophysical methods, specifically seismology and geodesy. To this end, we observed seismic waves of distant marsquakes and inverted for interior models using differential travel times of phases reflected at the surface (PP, SS...) or the core mantle-boundary (ScS), as well as those converted at crustal interfaces. Compared to previous orbital observations1-3, the seismic data added decisive new insights with consequences for the formation of Mars: The global average crustal thickness of 24-75 km is at the low end of pre-mission estimates5. Together with the the thick lithosphere of 450-600 km5, this requires an enrichment of heat-producing elements in the crust by a factor of 13-20, compared to the primitive mantle. The iron-rich liquid core is 1790-1870 km in radius6, which rules out the existence of an insulating bridgmanite-dominated lower mantle on Mars. The large, and therefore low-density core needs a high amount of light elements. Given the geochemical boundary conditions, Sulfur alone cannot explain the estimated density of ~6 g/cm3 and volatile elements, such as oxygen, carbon or hydrogen are needed in significant amounts. This observation is difficult to reconcile with classical models of late formation from the same material as Earth. We also give an overview of open questions after three years of InSight operation on the surface of Mars, such as the potential existence of an inner core or compositional layers above the CM
Relative Composition and Energy Spectra of Light Nuclei in Cosmic Rays: Results from AMS-01
Measurement of the chemical and isotopic composition of cosmic rays is essential for the precise understanding of their propagation in the galaxy. While the model parameters are mainly determined using the B/C ratio, the study of extended sets of ratios can provide stronger constraints on the propagation models. In this paper, the relative abundances of light-nuclei lithium, beryllium, boron, and carbon are presented. The secondary-to-primary ratios Li/C, Be/C, and B/C have been measured in the kinetic energy range 0.35-45 GeV nucleon[superscript –1]. The isotopic ratio [superscript 7]Li/[superscript 6]Li is also determined in the magnetic rigidity interval 2.5-6.3 GV. The secondary-to-secondary ratios Li/Be, Li/B, and Be/B are also reported. These measurements are based on the data collected by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer AMS-01 during the STS-91 space shuttle flight in 1998 June. Our experimental results are in substantial agreement with other measurements, where they exist. We describe our light-nuclei data with a diffusive-reacceleration model. A 10%-15% overproduction of Be is found in the model predictions and can be attributed to uncertainties in the production cross-section data
The JWST Early Release Science Program for Direct Observations of Exoplanetary Systems II: A 1 to 20 Micron Spectrum of the Planetary-Mass Companion VHS 1256-1257 b
We present the highest fidelity spectrum to date of a planetary-mass object.
VHS 1256 b is a 20 M widely separated (8\arcsec, a =
150 au), young, planetary-mass companion that shares photometric colors and
spectroscopic features with the directly imaged exoplanets HR 8799 c, d, and e.
As an L-to-T transition object, VHS 1256 b exists along the region of the
color-magnitude diagram where substellar atmospheres transition from cloudy to
clear. We observed VHS 1256~b with \textit{JWST}'s NIRSpec IFU and MIRI MRS
modes for coverage from 1 m to 20 m at resolutions of 1,000 -
3,700. Water, methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sodium, and potassium
are observed in several portions of the \textit{JWST} spectrum based on
comparisons from template brown dwarf spectra, molecular opacities, and
atmospheric models. The spectral shape of VHS 1256 b is influenced by
disequilibrium chemistry and clouds. We directly detect silicate clouds, the
first such detection reported for a planetary-mass companion.Comment: Accepted ApJL Iterations of spectra reduced by the ERS team are
hosted at this link:
https://github.com/bemiles/JWST_VHS1256b_Reduction/tree/main/reduced_spectr
- …