Showing papers in "Planetary and Space Science in 2007"

TL;DR: The Mars Express high-resolution stereo camera (HRSC) as discussed by the authors is a push-broom scanning instrument with nine CCD line detectors mounted in parallel on a focal plane, its unique feature is the ability to obtain near-simultaneous imaging data at high resolution, with along-track triple stereo, four colors and five different phase angles.

TL;DR: The ASPERA-3 experiment as discussed by the authors was used to study the solar wind interaction and characterize the plasma and neutral gas environment within the space near Mars through the use of energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging and measuring local ion and electron plasma.

TL;DR: The physical and chemical aeronomy of the hot Jupiter HD 209458b has been investigated in this paper, where the escape and composition of the irradiated atmosphere were modeled by solving the equations of mass, momentum and energy conservation.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors derived scaling laws from solar system planetary radio emissions that relate the emitted radio power to the power dissipated in the various corresponding flow-obstacle interactions and generalized these scaling laws into a radio-magnetic scaling law that seems to relate output radio power with the magnetic energy flux convected on the obstacle, this obstacle being magnetized or unmagnetized.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the exogenous, hydrogeochemical and biological sources for supplying methane to Mars and suggested that comets and meteorites are the least likely, whereas low-temperature serpentinization is the most plausible of all candidates to explain the methane observations.

TL;DR: Venus Express as discussed by the authors is the first European mission to planet Venus, which aims at a comprehensive investigation of the Venus atmosphere and plasma environment and will address some important aspects of the surface physics from orbit.

TL;DR: The SPICAV VIS-IR (Vis-IR) spectrometer as discussed by the authors was used on the VEX spacecraft to study the upper atmosphere of the planet Venus from ground level to the outermost hydrogen corona at more than 40,000 km.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that the bright mantles are effectively invisible (transparent) in RADAR synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images leading to lack of correlation in the RADAR images with optically bright mantling units.

TL;DR: The Visible and Infrared Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on board the ESA/Venus Express mission has technical specifications well suited for many science objectives of Venus exploration as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors review the mineralogy of the surface of Mars, using data from various sources, including in situ characterisations performed by landers, remote observations from orbit, and studies of the SNC meteorites.

TL;DR: The geomicrobiological characterization of the Rio Tinto (Iberian Pyritic Belt) has recently proven the importance of the iron cycle, not only in the generation of the extreme conditions of the habitat (low pH, high concentration of heavy metals), but also in the maintenance of a high level of microbial diversity.

TL;DR: In this article, the structure of the Venus atmosphere is discussed and the data obtained in the 1980s by the last Soviet missions to Venus: orbiters Venera 15, 16 and the entry probes and balloons of Vega 1 and 2 are compared with the VIRA model.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a review of the X-ray emission from the solar system bodies, excluding the Sun, and an overview of the main source mechanisms of Xray production at each object.

TL;DR: In this article, a review of the literature available on the detection of methane in the martian atmosphere and the presence of gas clathrate hydrates on Mars is presented.

TL;DR: The Huygens probe captured several hundred visible-light images with its three cameras on approach to the surface of Titan and several sets of stereo image pairs were collected during the descent as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this paper, the primary chemical cycles and the interactions among sulfur and chlorine radicals in the middle atmosphere are reviewed to assess the current status of our knowledge, identify unresolved questions, and assess how the Venus Express mission may contribute to their resolution.

TL;DR: In this paper, a sensitivity study using a coupled radiative-convective photochemical column model was performed to calculate changes in atmospheric chemistry on a planet having Earth's atmospheric composition, which were subjected to small changes in orbital position, of the order of 5-10% for a solar-type G2V, F2V and K2V star.

TL;DR: In this article, the ion-acoustic instability in a dusty negative ion plasma is investigated, focusing on the parameter regime in which the negative ion density is much larger than the electron density.

TL;DR: The BepiColombo Laser Altimeter (BELA) has been selected for flight on board the European Space Agency's BepIColombo Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), which is intended to be Europe's first planetary laser altimeter system as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: In this paper, it is shown that at close distances the stellar wind is still slow and has not yet reached the velocity it has at larger distances, which correspondingly reduces the intensity of stellar wind-driven planetary radio emission, which is calculated taking into account the stellar age.

TL;DR: Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) as discussed by the authors is a miniature wide-angle camera with 17.5° field-of-view (FOVOS) which was designed and built to complement these experiments and provide imaging context for the whole mission.

TL;DR: In this article, a new ULF wave index was calculated and applied to the analysis of relativistic electron enhancements during space weather events in March-May 1994 and September 1999.

TL;DR: In this article, a detailed analysis of the propagation of uncertainties carried by the reaction rate coefficients included in an up-to-date photochemical model of Titan's atmosphere is presented.

TL;DR: The Odin satellite as discussed by the authors was used to observe the 557 GHz line of water with high spectral resolution in 12 comets between 2001 and 2005, and it was also possible to detect the H218O 548 GHz line, first in comet 153P/Ikeya Zhang in April 2002 [Lecacheux, A., Biver, N., Crovisier, J. et al., 2003] and then in comets C/2002 T7 (LINEAR), C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) and C/2004 Q2 (Machholz

TL;DR: The Venus Climate Orbiter mission (PLANET-C) as discussed by the authors aims at understanding the atmospheric circulation of Venus Meteorological information will be obtained by globally mapping clouds and minor constituents successively with four cameras at ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths, detecting lightning with a high-speed imager, and observing the vertical structure of the atmosphere with radio science technique.

TL;DR: In this article, Yamamoto et al. used the Subaru prime-focus camera (Suprime-Cam) attached to the 8.2-m Subaru telescope to investigate the physical properties of very small Main Belt Asteroids (sub-km MBAs).

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the morphological analysis of the surface of Mars to show that large bodies of water were probably present in the North hemisphere at late Noachian (3.7-4 Gyr ago).

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first laboratory measurements of the photoelectric efficiencies and yields of individual sub-micron/micron size dust grains selected from sample returns of Apollo 17 and Luna-24 missions as well as similar size Dust grains from the JSC-1 simulants.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors analyze five OMEGA observations that were acquired over the high southern latitudes in 2004 at the end of summer (L S = 335 − 348 ∘ ) to investigate the nature, distribution and properties of various icy terrains: the bright permanent polar cap (BPPC), the layered deposits (SPLD), and the seasonal accumulations of water frost (SFA).

TL;DR: Tomasko et al. as mentioned in this paper reconstructed the azimuths throughout 360 rotations during the descent and for each of some 3500 DISR exposures with a typical accuracy near 2ring operator.