13 research outputs found
In-situ detection of Europa's water plumes is harder than previously thought
Europa's subsurface ocean is a potential candidate for life in the outer
solar system. It is thought that plumes may exist which eject ocean material
out into space, which may be detected by a spacecraft flyby. Previous work on
the feasibility of these detections has assumed a collisionless model of the
plume particles. New models of the plumes including particle collisions have
shown that a shock can develop in the plume interior as rising particles
collide with particles falling back to the moon's surface, limiting the plume's
altitude. Results show that the region over Europa's surface within which
plumes would be separable from the HO atmosphere by JUICE (the region of
separability) is reduced by up to a half with the collisional model compared to
the collisionless model. Putative plume sources which are on the border of the
region of separability for the collisionless model cannot be separated from the
atmosphere when the shock is considered for a mass flux case of 100kg/s.
Increasing the flyby altitude by 100km such that the spacecraft passes above
the shock canopy results in a reduction in region of separability by a third,
whilst decreasing the flyby altitude by 100km increases the region of
separability by the same amount. We recommend flybys pass through or as close
to the shock as possible to sample the most high-density region. If the
spacecraft flies close to the shock, the structure of the plume could be
resolvable using the neutral mass spectrometer on JUICE, allowing us to test
models of the plume physics and understand the underlying physics of Europa's
plumes. As the altitude of the shock is uncertain and dependent on
unpredictable plume parameters, we recommend flybys be lowered where possible
to reduce the risk of passing above the shock and losing detection coverage,
density and duration
Fire on the Mountain: The Ideal Free Distribution and Early Hunter-gatherer Demography in the Tennessee River Drainage, USA
Was low atmospheric CO2 during the Pleistocene a limiting factor for the origin of agriculture?
Better homes and pastures: Human agency and the construction of place in communal bison hunting on the Northern Plains
Synthesis in the human evolutionary behavioural sciences
Over the last three decades, the application of evolutionary theory to the human sciences has shown remarkable growth. This growth has also been characterised by a ‘splitting’ process, with the emergence of distinct sub-disciplines, most notably: Human Behavioural Ecology (HBE), Evolutionary Psychology (EP) and studies of Cultural Evolution (CE). Multiple applications of evolutionary ideas to the human sciences are undoubtedly a good thing, demonstrating the usefulness of this approach to human affairs. Nevertheless, this fracture has been associated with considerable tension, a lack of integration, and sometimes outright conflict between researchers. In recent years however, there have been clear signs of hope that a synthesis of the human evolutionary behavioural sciences is underway. Here, we briefly review the history of the debate, both its theoretical and practical causes; then provide evidence that the field is currently becoming more integrated, as the traditional boundaries between sub-disciplines become blurred. This article constitutes the first paper under the new editorship of the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology , which aims to further this integration by explicitly providing a forum for integrated work
Streams as Entanglement of Nature and Culture: European Upper Paleolithic River Systems and Their Role as Features of Spatial Organization
Human Origin