CO on Titan: More Evidence for a Well-Mixed Vertical Profile

We report new interferometric observations of the CO (2-1) rotational transition on Titan. We find that the spectrum is best fit by a uniform profile of 52 ppm, with estimated errors of 6 ppm (40 to 200 km) and 12 ppm (200 to 300 km).Comment: Submitted to as a Note to Icarus. Uses emulateapj.sty under Latex, 6 text pages, 2 figs (includes with psfig

First Disk-Resolved Millimeter Observations Of Io's Surface And SO2 Atmosphere

Aims. In spite of considerable progress in the last two decades, Io's atmosphere remains poorly understood. The goal of this work is to improve our understanding of its spatial distribution, temperature and dynamics. Methods. We present millimeter observations of Io's surface and SO2 atmosphere at 1.4 mm obtained with the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer in January-February 2005. With a synthesized beam of 0.5 x 1.5 '', these observations resolve Io's similar to 1.0 '' disk in the longitudinal/local time direction, and sample the leading and trailing hemispheres of Io. Results. The measured continuum total flux and visibilities show that continuum radiation originates from a depth of at least 1 cm in Io's subsurface. On both the leading and trailing sides, emission in the SO2 216.643 GHz line appears spatially narrower than the continuum, and suggests that the atmosphere covers similar to 80% of the surface on the leading side and similar to 60% on the trailing. On the leading side, disk-resolved spectra yield Doppler shift measurements, indicating a beam-integrated limb-to-limb velocity difference of 330 +/-3 100 m/s in the prograde direction. Such a flow allows an improved fit of disk-averaged SO2 spectra, but its origin remains to be understood. Mean gas temperatures are in the range 130-180 K, in agreement with estimates from IR measurements, and with a tendency for higher trailing vs leading side gas temperatures. On the basis of realistic plume models, we find that the contribution of isolated volcanic plumes to the SO2 emission is small.Astronom

Educating Elementary Students About Nutrition: An After-school Club Curriculum

This creative project was created to serve as a 10-week afterschool club curriculum for 3rd-5th graders to teach them about nutrition and healthy eating patterns. The goal of the program is to help kids establish a foundation for healthy eating that they can utilize throughout their lives, potentially reducing their risk of developing chronic diseases as an adult. Information presented during the program is a representation of the key components of the USDA MyPlate and the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The curriculum aims to teach these concepts by breaking down the different food groups, reading nutrition facts labels, and evaluating sugar-sweetened beverages. The rationale portion of this project explains the models, theories, statistics, and research-based evidence that were used when crafting each lesson plan. Using the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child approach, the curriculum looks at how the health and academic performance of a student are intertwined and how nutrition education can help develop the whole child. Some plans were also developed around the exposure effect, meaning that students are exposed to new foods or to different nutrition facts labels that they might not have the opportunity to see or experience at home. Other plans incorporated the gamified repetition theory where students were repeatedly exposed to concepts by playing games to help them commit their new knowledge to memory. While there is no formal assessment, the activities themselves or the informal assessments listed at the end serve as tools to gauge the students\u27 mastery of the topics

Exploring Io's atmospheric composition with APEX: first measurement of 34SO2 and tentative detection of KCl

The composition of Io's tenuous atmosphere is poorly constrained. Only the major species SO2 and a handful of minor species have been positively identified, but a variety of other molecular species should be present, based on thermochemical equilibrium models of volcanic gas chemistry and the composition of Io's environment. This paper focuses on the spectral search for expected yet undetected molecular species (KCl, SiO, S2O) and isotopes (34SO2). We analyze a disk-averaged spectrum of a potentially line-rich spectral window around 345 GHz, obtained in 2010 at the APEX-12m antenna (Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment). Using different models assuming either extended atmospheric distributions or a purely volcanically-sustained atmosphere, we tentatively measure the KCl relative abundance with respect to SO2 and derive a range of 4x10^{-4}-8x10^{-3}. We do not detect SiO or S2O and present new upper limits on their abundances. We also present the first measurement of the 34S/32S isotopic ratio in gas phase on Io, which appears to be twice as high as the Earth and ISM reference values. Strong lines of SO2 and SO are also analyzed to check for longitudinal variations of column density and relative abundance. Our models show that, based on their predicted relative abundance with respect to SO2 in volcanic plumes, both the tentative KCl detection and SiO upper limit are compatible with a purely volcanic origin for these species.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 11 pages, 4 figure

Wind mapping in Venus' upper mesosphere with the IRAM-Plateau de Bure interferometer

The dynamics of the upper mesosphere of Venus (~85-115 km) have been characterized as a combination of a retrograde superrotating zonal wind (RSZ) with a subsolar-to-antisolar flow (SSAS). Numerous mm-wave single-dish observations have been obtained and could directly measure mesospheric line-of-sight winds by mapping Doppler-shifts on CO rotational lines, but their limited spatial resolution makes their interpretation difficult. By using interferometric facilities, one can obtain better resolution on Doppler-shifts maps, allowing in particular to put firmer constraints on the respective contributions of the SSAS and RSZ circulations to the global mesospheric wind field. We report on interferometric observations of the CO(1-0) line obtained with the IRAM-Plateau de Bure interferometer in November 2007 and June 2009, that could map the upper mesosphere dynamics on the morning hemisphere with a very good spatial resolution (3.5-5.5"). All the obtained measurements show, with a remarkably good temporal stability, that the wind globally flows in the (sky) East-West direction, corresponding in the observed geometry either to an unexpected prograde zonal wind or a SSAS flow. A very localized inversion of the wind direction, that could correspond to a RSZ wind, is also repeatedly detected in the night hemisphere. The presence of significant meridional winds is not evidenced. Using models with different combinations of zonal and SSAS winds, we find that the data is best reproduced by a dominant SSAS flow with a maximal velocity at the terminator of ~200 m/s, displaying large diurnal and latitudinal asymmetries, combined with an equatorial RSZ wind of 70-100 m/s, overall indicating a wind-field structure consistent with but much more complex than the usual representation of the mesospheric dynamics.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&