Jet Propulsion Laboratory

About: Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a facility organization based out in La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Mars Exploration Program & Telescope. The organization has 8801 authors who have published 14333 publications receiving 548163 citations. The organization is also known as: JPL & NASA JPL.

Transience of hot dust around sun-like stars

Abstract: In this paper a simple model for the steady state evolution of debris disks due to collisions is developed and confronted with the properties of the emerging population of seven Sun-like stars that have hot dust at 10 AU (η Corvi and HD 72905); one has three Neptune mass planets at <1 AU (HD 69830); all exhibit strong mid-IR silicate features. We consider the most likely origin for this transient dust to be a dynamical instability that scattered planetesimals inward from a more distant planetesimal belt in an event akin to the late heavy bombardment in our own system, the dust being released from such planetesimals in collisions and sublimation.

Tropospheric ozone changes, radiative forcing and attribution to emissions in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP)

Abstract: . Ozone (O3) from 17 atmospheric chemistry models taking part in the Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Model Intercomparison Project (ACCMIP) has been used to calculate tropospheric ozone radiative forcings (RFs). All models applied a common set of anthropogenic emissions, which are better constrained for the present-day than the past. Future anthropogenic emissions follow the four Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) scenarios, which define a relatively narrow range of possible air pollution emissions. We calculate a value for the pre-industrial (1750) to present-day (2010) tropospheric ozone RF of 410 mW m−2. The model range of pre-industrial to present-day changes in O3 produces a spread (±1 standard deviation) in RFs of ±17%. Three different radiation schemes were used – we find differences in RFs between schemes (for the same ozone fields) of ±10%. Applying two different tropopause definitions gives differences in RFs of ±3%. Given additional (unquantified) uncertainties associated with emissions, climate-chemistry interactions and land-use change, we estimate an overall uncertainty of ±30% for the tropospheric ozone RF. Experiments carried out by a subset of six models attribute tropospheric ozone RF to increased emissions of methane (44±12%), nitrogen oxides (31 ± 9%), carbon monoxide (15 ± 3%) and non-methane volatile organic compounds (9 ± 2%); earlier studies attributed more of the tropospheric ozone RF to methane and less to nitrogen oxides. Normalising RFs to changes in tropospheric column ozone, we find a global mean normalised RF of 42 mW m−2 DU−1, a value similar to previous work. Using normalised RFs and future tropospheric column ozone projections we calculate future tropospheric ozone RFs (mW m−2; relative to 1750) for the four future scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5) of 350, 420, 370 and 460 (in 2030), and 200, 300, 280 and 600 (in 2100). Models show some coherent responses of ozone to climate change: decreases in the tropical lower troposphere, associated with increases in water vapour; and increases in the sub-tropical to mid-latitude upper troposphere, associated with increases in lightning and stratosphere-to-troposphere transport. Climate change has relatively small impacts on global mean tropospheric ozone RF.

Iron isotope biosignatures.

Abstract: The (56)Fe/(54)Fe of Fe-bearing phases precipitated in sedimentary environments varies by 2.5 per mil (delta(56)Fe values of +0.9 to -1. 6 per mil). In contrast, the (56)Fe/(54)Fe of Fe-bearing phases in igneous rocks from Earth and the moon does not vary measurably (delta(56)Fe = 0.0 +/- 0.3 per mil). Experiments with dissimilatory Fe-reducing bacteria of the genus Shewanella algae grown on a ferrihydrite substrate indicate that the delta(56)Fe of ferrous Fe in solution is isotopically lighter than the ferrihydrite substrate by 1.3 per mil. Therefore, the range in delta(56)Fe values of sedimentary rocks may reflect biogenic fractionation, and the isotopic composition of Fe may be used to trace the distribution of microorganisms in modern and ancient Earth.

Weak Gravitational Lensing with COSMOS: Galaxy Selection and Shape Measurements

Abstract: With a primary goal of conducting precision weak lensing measurements from space, the COSMOS survey has imaged the largest contiguous area observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to date using the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). This is the first paper in a series where we describe our strategy for addressing the various technical challenges in the production of weak lensing measurements from the COSMOS data. The COSMOS ACS catalog is constructed from 575 ACS/WFC tiles (1.64 deg^2) and contains a total 1.2x10^6 objects to a limiting magnitude of F814W=26.5. This catalog is made publicly available. The shapes of galaxies have been measured and corrected for the distortion induced by the time varying ACS Point Spread Function and for Charge Transfer Efficiency effects. Next, simulated images are used to derive the shear susceptibility factors that are necessary in order to transform shape measurements into unbiased shear estimators. Finally, for each galaxy, we derive a shape measurement error and utilize this quantity to extract the intrinsic shape noise of the galaxy sample. Interestingly, our results indicate that the intrinsic shape noise varies little with either size, magnitude or redshift. Representing a number density of 66 galaxies per arcmin^2, the final COSMOS weak lensing catalog contains 3.9x10^5 galaxies with accurate shape measurements. The properties of the COSMOS weak lensing catalog described throughout this paper will provide key input numbers for the preparation and design of next-generation wide field space missions.