The origin and specific features of the martian satellites in the context of the euruption concept
TL;DR: The numerous problems related to the origin and evolution of Phobos and Deimos, as well as specific features of their topography, are readily accounted for in the context of a concept presupposing the possibility of detonation (or burning) of electrolyzed ices as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The numerous problems related to the origin and evolution of Phobos and Deimos, as well as to specific features of their topography, are readily accounted for in the context of a concept presupposing the possibility of detonation (or burning) of electrolyzed ices.
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Abstract: The numerous poorly understood differences between Ganymede and Callisto (the difference in the densities, in the degree of cratering and topography of the surface, the existence proper of craters and a difference of their distribution from that typical of bodies in the inner Solar System, etc.) find readily an explanation within the hypothesis of an explosion of Ganymede's icy envelope saturated by products of the volumetric electrolysis of ice. Similar explosions underwent earlier the ices on Io and Europa, and more recently, on Saturn's satellite Titan. One cannot exclude the possibility that the envelope of Callisto is also saturated by the electrolysis products and is only awaiting a strong impact which would trigger its explosion. The consequences of such an explosion would be devastating for the Earth's biosphere. About 109 ice fragments Φ ⩾ 0.3 km would appear in the orbits of Jovian comet family. Every day, a body causing an explosion ≳ 1 Mt of TNT equivalent would fall on the Earth, once a year- ≳ 103 Mt, and once in a man's life, ≳ 105 Mt. Apart from purely impact effects (super-tsunami, heating of the atmosphere) and the poisoning of the air by such compounds as HCN, CO, etc., impacts in excess of 105 Mt could produce a ‘nuclear winter’ phenomenon resulting from the appearance of huge amounts of dust in the atmosphere. Such impact-related catastrophies led in the past to changes of geological epochs. An analysis is given of possible impact sources. The ~30Myr intervals between mass extinctions can be accounted for by purely random collisions, with only large impacts being capable of producing (1) a nuclear ‘superwinter’ leading to a global catastrophe and (2) an ejection from the Earth of the Aten-type asteroids leading to subsequent secondary mass bombardment. A possibility is pointed out of the appearance of rare (once in about 108 yr) short-period comet showers originating from the detonation of the ices still remaining in the large Trojans. The high priority of a mission to Callisto to determine the degree of saturation of its ices by the electrolysis products and to evaluate its potential hazard for mankind is validated.
12 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that the velocity and temperature of the gas escaping from the nucleus over the theoretical values, the outflow being concentrated in several ( ~ 12-15) narrow ( ~ 300 m in size at the nucleus) hypersonic jets carrying very large amounts of remarkably fine CHON dust and located along continuous lines on the nuclear surface, intense release from either the nucleus or very close to it (≲2 × 103km) of CO (QCo/QH2O = 0.05-0.2) with a smaller amount of CO
Abstract: The totality of the results obtained in the VEGA, GIOTTO and SUISEI projects does not lend itself to interpretation within the old sublimation models of comet activity considering solar radiation as the sole source of energy. Among them are the systematic excess of the velocity and temperature of the gas escaping from the nucleus over the theoretical values, the outflow being concentrated in several ( ~ 12–15) narrow ( ~ 300 m in size at the nucleus) hypersonic jets carrying very large amounts of remarkably fine CHON dust and located along continuous lines on the nuclear surface, intense release from the nucleus or very close to it (≲2 × 103km) of CO (QCo/QH2O = 0.05–0.2) with a smaller amount of CO2 (QCO2/ QH2O ≈ 0.015), large near-nucleus abundances of C, C+ (QC/QCO ≈ 0.29), etc.
10 citations
TL;DR: The lithium emission detection in the plume formed after the impact of the fragment L onto Jupiter was puzzling as nobody has observed Li in comets up to now as discussed by the authors, and this discovery speaks for cometary origin of Li and for its concentration solely in a part of the SL-9 nucleus.
Abstract: The SL-9 nucleus splitting into 20+ fragments well after the perijove, and continuing during several months, cannot be explained by stretches due to a tidal process. Here one can track an analogy with the standard behavior of short-period comets usually developing their maximum activity after the perihelion and experiencing outbursts correlated with the solar activity. The outbursts can also be followed by the nucleus break-up and take place at distances where water practically does not sublimate. The lithium emission detection in the plume formed after the impact of the fragment L onto Jupiter was puzzling as nobody has observed Li in comets up to now. This discovery speaks for cometary origin of Li and for its concentration solely in a part of the SL-9 nucleus. The comet formation of grains condensed in a turbulized gas nebula is hardly able to account for such local overabundance of Li which is known to be a rare and highly dispersed element. These difficulties are solved in a natural way by t...
10 citations
Cites background from "The origin and specific features of..."
...Traces of such a primary local layered structure (“crater chains” or “veins”) can be seen at Phobos (Drobyshevski, 1988a), and it is along the outcrops of such layers that the sources of the outflowing gas jets travel on the surface of the nucleus (Sekanina and Larson, 1986; Sekanina, 1987)....
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...A t: 13 :5 1 13 D ec em be r 2 00 7 SHOEMAKER-LEVY 9 223 terms of the NEC (Drobyshevski, 1988b), thus confirming its validity....
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...These difficulties are solved in a natural way by the New Explosive Cosmogony (NEC) of minor bodies....
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...Finally, in Section 5 , we will point out once again that, during fifteen years of development, the NEC has encountered no scientifically grounded objections at all....
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...Eventually, all the large fragments lost all their volatiles, including water, as it happened with Phobos after combustion was initiated there by the Stickney impact (Drobyshevski, 1988a)....
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Posted Content•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors considered the short-period (SP) comet nuclei, to which the Tunguska body belonged, to be fragments produced in explosions of massive icy envelopes of Ganymede-type bodies saturated by products of bulk electrolysis of ices to the form of a 2H2+O2 solid solution.
Abstract: The well-known Tunguska-1908 phenomenon (TP) problems (the fast transfer of the kinetic energy of the meteoroid W~10-50 Mt TNT to air, with its heating to T>10^4 K at an altitude of 5-10 km, the final turn of the smoothly sloping, ~0-20^o to horizon, trajectory of the body through ~10^o to the West, the pattern and area of the tree-fall and trees' scorching by heat radiation, etc.) allow a simple solution within the New Explosive Cosmogony (NEC) of minor bodies, as opposed to other approaches. The NEC considers the short-period (SP) comet nuclei, to which the Tunguska body belonged, to be fragments produced in explosions of massive icy envelopes of Ganymede-type bodies saturated by products of bulk electrolysis of ices to the form of a 2H2+O2 solid solution. The nearly tangent entry into the Earth's atmosphere with V~20 km/s of such a nucleus, ~200-500 m in size and ~(5-50)x10^12 g in mass, also saturated by 2H2+O2, initiated detonation of its part of ~10^12 g at an altitude of 5-10 km. This resulted in deflection of this fraction trajectory by 5^o-10^o, and fast expansion with ~2 km/s of its detonation products brought about their fast slowing down by the air, heating of the latter to T>10^4 K and a phenomenon of high-altitude explosion. On crossing the Earth's atmosphere, the main part of the unexploded nucleus escaped into space, and this body moving presently in an SP orbit should eventually be identified in time. Its impact with W~250-3000 Mt TNT on the Earth's surface (which could occur in 1908) would have produced a crater up to ~3.5-8 km in size, with an ejection of dust that would have brought about a climatic catastrophe. The processes involved in the TP are resembling those accompanying falling P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 onto Jupiter and, possibly, the impact-caused Younger Dryas cooling ~13 ka ago.
8 citations
Cites background from "The origin and specific features of..."
...…for practically the whole totality of the cometary manifestations whose origin had remained for a long time mysterious (e.g., bursts and breakups of the nuclei which correlate with solar activity, the appearance of ions and radicals in the close vicinity of the nucleus, etc.) (Drobyshevski 1988b)....
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... had remained for a long time mysterious (e.g., bursts and breakups of the nuclei which correlate with solar activity, the appearance of ions and radicals in the close vicinity of the nucleus, etc.) (Drobyshevski 1988b). It presently appears that it is these new concepts implying a possibility of a chemical explosion of ices of a cometary nucleus in the Earth’s atmosphere that provide the heretofore lacking link c...
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...This structure is revealed in Phobos, the Martian satellite, which within the NEC is considered, similar to Deimos, to be a fragment produced in the explosion of a larger, ~200-km icy fragment and captured into a near-Martian orbit (Drobyshevski 1988a)....
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...bos, the Martian satellite, which within the NEC is considered, similar to Deimos, to be a fragment produced in the explosion of a larger, ~200-km icy fragment and captured into a near-Martian orbit (Drobyshevski 1988a). The layered structure is a consequence of the geological processes (solid-state convection) that occurred in the icy mantle of a Ganymede-type parent body. On Phobos, this structure, which is norm...
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12 Oct 2006
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of tidal deformation on the Jovian moon Europa and the Martian moon Phobos were investigated. But they did not consider the effects on the Earth's surface.
Abstract: Preface In September 2005, I finished a " sabbatical " year of working for a student choir. From the world of arranging concert halls and rehearsal rooms, I entered back in the world of another passion: science. chair works mainly on precise orbit determination, Earth observation and Space instrumentation. Recently, planetary science has become a more important subject at this chair. This work is a continuation of previous M.Sc. theses researches about Jupiter's moon Europa. This report is set up for M.Sc. students or higher on the same subject. For people who are interested in planetary sciences but do not have a technical background , I advice to read the background information of Europa and Phobos, in sections 4.1 and 5.1, respectively. The results in sections 4.6 and 5.5 can be fairly understood without mathematical background. This work would have been impossible to accomplish without the help of a lot of people. The people on the ninth floor of the Aerospace Faculty building created a pleasant atmosphere to work in. I could not have completed this work without the help of fellow students and staff members, who did not only provide help, but moreover encouraged my interest in planetary sciences. In particular, I want to thank my tutor Bert Vermeersen, who always kept the door open for questions, and Luuk van Barneveld, who shared his knowledge about Europa. Next, I want to thank Tony Dobrovolskis for sending me his numerical model of Phobos to make my graphics look more realistic and René Pischel for keeping me up to date about the encounters of Phobos by Mars Express. Furthermore, I thank Terry Hurford for sharing his methods and results on Europa. A special gratitude goes to friends, family and the One above for hearing my stories about tidal deformation over and over again. Summary Tidal forces are very important in various processes in our solar system. This thesis shows the effects of tidal deformation on the Jovian moon Europa and Martian moon Phobos. It makes use of the normal mode analysis, which was initially developed to model the deformation of the Earth. Grooves and ridges on the surface of Europa show a possibility of a liquid ocean under the icy surface, caused by tidal heating as a result of Europa's eccentric orbit around Jupiter. By using an altimeter on an orbital mission to Europa the daily tidal deformation could be measured. …
6 citations
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TL;DR: In this paper, the deceleration and fragmentation of two parent bodies passing through an extended primordial Jovian nebula may account for the clusters of prograde and retrograde satellites of Jupiter.
254 citations
TL;DR: The concept of primordial rubble piles as discussed by the authors was proposed as a modification of the basic Whipple model, not as a replacement for it, and is analogous to the "rubble pile" model suggested for the larger main-belt asteroids, although the larger cometary fragments are expected to be primordial condensations rather than collisionally derived debris.
Abstract: Whipple's icy conglomerate model for the cometary nucleus has had considerable sucess in explaining a variety of cometary phenomena such as gas production rates and nongravitational forces. However, as discussed here, both observational evidence and theoretical considerations suggest that the cometary nucleus may not be a well-consolidated single body, but may instead be a loosely bound agglomeration of smaller fragments, weakly bonded and subject to occasional or even frequent disruptive events. The proposed model is analogous to the 'rubble pile' model suggested for the larger main-belt asteroids, although the larger cometary fragments are expected to be primordial condensations rather than collisionally derived debris as in the asteroid case. The concept of cometary nuclei as primordial rubble piles is proposed as a modification of the basic Whipple model, not as a replacement for it.
150 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the motion of fragments following a catastrophic destruction by either a normal or an oblique impact at 2.5-2.9 km sec−1 into cubic and spherical basalt targets was studied with a high-speed framing camera.
133 citations
TL;DR: Viking Orbiter images have provided nearly complete coverage of the two satellites of Mars and have been used to construct maps of the surface features of Phobos and Deimos as discussed by the authors.
113 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the global distribution, morphology, age, possible origin and significance of the long linear depressions termed grooves on the surface of Phobos are discussed, based on Viking Orbiter data.
Abstract: The global distribution, morphology, age, possible origin and significance of the long, linear depressions termed grooves on the surface of Phobos are discussed, based on Viking Orbiter data. The grooves, which consist of linear strings of coalesced and separate depressions in a loose regolith up to 100-200 m in depth, are observed to define the intersection of several sets of parallel planes with the surface of Phobos, with the widest and deepest grooves occurring just outside the rim of the 10-km crater, Stickney. The superposition of the grooves on older craters, crater density within the grooves and the intersections of groove sets suggest that the grooves are all of the same age, with their formation closely following that of Stickney. The evidence of groove morphology and distribution is used to attribute their formation to the enlargement of preexisting fractures or the formation of new fractures by the Stickney impact, causing the mobilization of the regolith along the fractures. The lack of observable grooves on Deimos is explained by the absence of a crater large enough to have severly fractured its surface.
87 citations