Permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) in the north polar region of Ceres have been previously mapped by the Dawn spacecraft. Putative ice deposits are found in some of these PSRs, whereas most PSRs host no bright deposits, which is thought to be due to oscillations of the axis tilt with a ∼25 ka period. We use stereophotoclinometry to construct refined topographic models of PSR-hosting craters. Ray-tracing calculations reveal that no PSRs remain at the maximum axis tilt, which implies that the ice deposits are remarkably young. The bright ice deposits do not extend beyond PSRs at an axis tilt of 10°, which last occurred about 6 ka ago. This suggests that water is delivered to the polar regions or exposed within the craters by frequent and short-lived events. Surface temperatures are calculated with a terrain irradiance model to delineate cold traps. Based on maximum equilibrium temperatures, Cerean PSRs are too warm to trap supervolatiles.
The American Astronomical Society (AAS), established in 1899 and based in Washington, DC, is the major organization of professional astronomers in North America. Its membership of about 7,000 individuals also includes physicists, mathematicians, geologists, engineers, and others whose research and educational interests lie within the broad spectrum of subjects comprising contemporary astronomy. The mission of the AAS is to enhance and share humanity's scientific understanding of the universe.
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The Planetary Science Journal is an open access journal devoted to recent developments, discoveries, and theories in planetary science. The journal welcomes all aspects of investigation of the solar system and other planetary systems.
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Norbert Schorghofer et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 99
Adam Battle et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 96
Since the dawn of the Space Age, hundreds of payloads have been launched into heliocentric space. As near-Earth object (NEO) surveys search deeper for small asteroids, more artificial objects in heliocentric orbits are being discovered. We now face a challenge to identify the true nature of these objects and avoid contaminating the NEO catalog. Here, we present the methods used to characterize one such object. 2020 SO was discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 survey on 2020 September 17. Originally classified as a NEO, the object's artificial nature became evident due to its low velocity relative to Earth and solar radiation pressure affecting its orbit about the Sun. Based on a backward propagation of its orbit, 2020 SO is thought to be a Centaur rocket body (R/B) from the launch of the Surveyor 2 mission to the Moon. We characterized 2020 SO using a range of ground-based optical and near-infrared telescopes to constrain its true nature. We find that its reflectance spectrum is consistent with that of other Centaur R/B launched during a similar time frame, and we identify 1.4, 1.7, and 2.3 μm absorption bands consistent with polyvinyl fluoride used on the aft bulkhead radiation shield exterior of Centaur-D R/B at the time.
William F. Bottke et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 88
The origins of the giant planet satellites are debated, with scenarios including formation from a protoplanetary disk, sequential assembly from massive rings, and recent accretion after major satellite–satellite collisions. Here, we test their predictions by simulating outer solar system bombardment and calculating the oldest surface ages on each moon. Our crater production model assumes the projectiles originated from a massive primordial Kuiper Belt (PKB) that experienced substantial changes from collisional evolution, which transformed its size frequency distribution into a wavy shape, and Neptune's outward migration, which ejected most PKB objects onto destabilized orbits. The latter event also triggered an instability among the giant planets some tens of Myr after the solar nebula dispersed. We find all giant planet satellites are missing their earliest crater histories, with the likely source being impact resetting events. Iapetus, Hyperion, Phoebe, and Oberon have surface ages that are a few Myr to a few tens of Myr younger than when Neptune entered the PKB (i.e., they are 4.52–4.53 Gyr old). The remaining midsized satellites of Saturn and Uranus, as well as the small satellites located between Saturn's rings and Dione, have surfaces that are younger still by many tens to many hundreds of Myr (4.1–4.5 Gyr old). A much wider range of surface ages are found for the large moons Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, and Europa (4.1, 3.4, 1.8, and 0.18 Gyr old, respectively). At present, we favor the midsized and larger moons forming within protoplanetary disks, with the other scenarios having several challenges to overcome.
Anicia Arredondo et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 37
We used the FORCAST instrument on SOFIA to obtain mid-infrared spectra (4.9–13.7 μm) of four S-type asteroids: (7) Iris, (11) Parthenope, (18) Melpomene, and (20) Massalia. Three of these four silicate-rich asteroids (Iris, Melpomene, and Massalia) were observed to have 3 μm features indicative of hydration by McAdam et al. We report a detection of a 6 μm feature that is unambiguously attributed to molecular water on two asteroids, Iris and Massalia, with peak heights of 4.532% ± 0.011% and 4.476% ± 0.012%, respectively. We estimate the abundance of molecular water based on these peak heights to be 454 ± 202 μg g−1 and 448 ± 209 μg g−1, consistent with values found on the sunlit Moon by SOFIA+FORCAST.
Shantanu P. Naidu et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 74
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission impacted Dimorphos, the satellite of binary near-Earth asteroid (65803) Didymos, on 2022 September 26 UTC. We estimate the changes in the orbital and physical properties of the system due to the impact using ground-based photometric and radar observations, as well as DART camera observations. Under the assumption that Didymos is an oblate spheroid, we estimate that its equatorial and polar radii are 394 ± 11 m and 290 ± 16 m, respectively. We estimate that the DART impact instantaneously changed the along-track velocity of Dimorphos by −2.63 ± 0.06 mm s−1. Initially, after the impact, Dimorphos's orbital period had changed by −32.7 minutes ± 16 s to 11.377 ± 0.004 hr. We find that over the subsequent several weeks the orbital period changed by an additional 34 ± 15 s, eventually stabilizing at 11.3674 ± 0.0004 hr. The total change in the orbital period was −33.25 minutes ±1.5 s. The postimpact orbit exhibits an apsidal precession rate of 6.7 ± 02 day−1. Under our model, this rate is driven by the oblateness parameter of Didymos, J2, as well as the spherical harmonics coefficients, C20 and C22, of Dimorphos's gravity. Under the assumption that Dimorphos is a triaxial ellipsoid with a uniform density, its C20 and C22 estimates imply axial ratios, a/b and a/c, of about 1.3 and 1.6, respectively. Preimpact images from DART indicate Dimorphos's shape was close to that of an oblate spheroid, and thus our results indicate that the DART impact significantly altered the shape of Dimorphos.
T. R. Watters et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 22
The lunar south pole regions are subjected to global stresses that result in contractional deformation and associated seismicity. This deformation is mainly expressed by lobate thrust fault scarps; examples are globally distributed, including polar regions. One small cluster of lobate scarps falls within the de Gerlache Rim 2 Artemis III candidate landing region. The formation of the largest de Gerlache scarp, less than 60 km from the pole, may have been the source of one of the strongest shallow moonquakes recorded by the Apollo Passive Seismic Network. The scarp is within a probabilistic space of relocated epicenters for this event determined in a previous study. Modeling suggests that a shallow moonquake with an Mw of ∼5.3 may have formed the lobate thrust fault scarp. We modeled the peak ground acceleration generated by such an event and found that strong to moderate ground shaking is predicted at a distance from the source of at least ∼40 km, while moderate to light shaking may extend beyond ∼50 km. Models of the slope stability in the south polar region predict that most of the steep slopes in Shackleton crater are susceptible to regolith landslides. Light seismic shaking may be all that is necessary to trigger regolith landslides, particularly if the regolith has low cohesion (on the order of ∼0.1 kPa). The potential of strong seismic events from active thrust faults should be considered when preparing and locating permanent outposts and pose a possible hazard to future robotic and human exploration of the south polar region.
Angelo Zinzi et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 103
The ASI cubesat LICIACube has been part of the first planetary defense mission DART, having among its scopes to complement the DRACO images to better constrain the Dimorphos shape. LICIACube had two different cameras, LEIA and LUKE, and to accomplish its goal, it exploited the unique possibility of acquiring images of the Dimorphos hemisphere not seen by DART from a vantage point of view, in both time and space. This work is indeed aimed at constraining the tridimensional shape of Dimorphos, starting from both LUKE images of the nonimpacted hemisphere of Dimorphos and the results obtained by DART looking at the impacted hemisphere. To this aim, we developed a semiautomatic Computer Vision algorithm, named VADER, able to identify objects of interest on the basis of physical characteristics, subsequently used as input to retrieve the shape of the ellipse projected in the LUKE images analyzed. Thanks to this shape, we then extracted information about the Dimorphos ellipsoid by applying a series of quantitative geometric considerations. Although the solution space coming from this analysis includes the triaxial ellipsoid found by using DART images, we cannot discard the possibility that Dimorphos has a more elongated shape, more similar to what is expected from previous theories and observations. The result of our work seems therefore to emphasize the unique value of the LICIACube mission and its images, making even clearer the need of having different points of view to accurately define the shape of an asteroid.
Edgard G. Rivera-Valentín et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 94
One of the youngest features on the Moon is Tycho, an 85 km diameter impact crater with a vast ray system that spans much of the lunar nearside. As such, it serves as an important stratigraphic marker for the Moon. One of Tycho's longest rays crosses the South Pole, where it intersects several candidate landing sites for NASA's Artemis III mission, which intends to return new lunar samples. Identification of ray-related effects are thus important to understand the provenance of collected material. To help contextualize sampling strategies, here we characterize the South Pole–crossing Tycho ray using monostatic S-band radar observations from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Miniature Radio Frequency instrument. We found that the ray is a ∼15 km wide radar-bright feature extending at least ∼1600 km from Tycho. Polarimetric analysis revealed that the measured radar backscatter is consistent with a terrain enhanced in centimeter-to-decimeter-scale scatterers. Moreover, we found that the abundance of these scatterers likely decreases with distance from the primary crater, suggesting there may be less Tycho-disturbed material, in particular, poleward of 85°S, where the candidate landing sites are located. Nevertheless, we identified craters along the ray and, importantly, within the Haworth candidate landing site that exhibit secondary crater characteristics, such as radar-bright, asymmetric ejecta deposits. We showed, based on solar illumination and topographic slopes, that the likely Tycho-related secondaries within Haworth are accessible by landed missions. Exploration of this site may thus directly sample Tycho-disturbed material, including a nearby permanently shadowed region, providing new insights into lunar surface processes.
Mikhail A. Kreslavsky and James W. Head 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 97
On the Moon, the surface morphology at the scale of meters and tens of meters is typically smooth and subdued due to regolith gardening. Sharp, "crisp," meter-scale morphologic features are observed only where the regolith is either thin or recently disturbed. Such crisp morphologies are typically created by geologically recent meteoritic impacts of different scales. The prominent exception is so-called irregular mare patches (IMPs), rare small features of debated origin. We report here on the discovery of previously unknown crisp immature morphological features (named "spiders" due to their central circular region and radiating "legs") not related to impacts and even more rare. The spiders are meters-deep depressions with near-radial chutes open toward the center which make an incipient dendritic pattern 50–80 m in diameter. All spiders found thus far occur in clusters in the same region in Mare Tranquillitatis in the immediate proximity to small IMPs. We interpret spiders as the result of an energetic granular flow of the regolith draining into shallow subsurface voids following the sudden collapse of the roofs of the voids. Regolith gardening destroys the spiders' legs rapidly, on a timescale of a million years. If the entrance into the subsurface void remains unclogged, a spider appears to evolve into a pit; otherwise it evolves into a gentle depression and finally disappears. Our interpretation of spiders provides a consistent explanation of all of their features, occurrence settings, and associations.
Patrick Michel et al 2022 Planet. Sci. J. 3 160
Hera is a planetary defense mission under development in the Space Safety and Security Program of the European Space Agency for launch in 2024 October. It will rendezvous in late 2026 December with the binary asteroid (65803) Didymos and in particular its moon, Dimorphos, which will be impacted by NASA's DART spacecraft on 2022 September 26 as the first asteroid deflection test. The main goals of Hera are the detailed characterization of the physical properties of Didymos and Dimorphos and of the crater made by the DART mission, as well as measurement of the momentum transfer efficiency resulting from DART's impact. The data from the Hera spacecraft and its two CubeSats will also provide significant insights into asteroid science and the evolutionary history of our solar system. Hera will perform the first rendezvous with a binary asteroid and provide new measurements, such as radar sounding of an asteroid interior, which will allow models in planetary science to be tested. Hera will thus provide a crucial element in the global effort to avert future asteroid impacts at the same time as providing world-leading science.
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Julie A. Rathbun et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 106
Recent ground-based Infrared Telescope Facility observations showed that a hot spot observed at the location of the surface feature Acala Fluctus was volcanically active for ∼18 months in 2019–2020 and exhibited two outbursts with a temperature of ∼1200 K. A high-temperature hot spot at Acala was also observed by Galileo SSI in the late 1990s over multiple flybys. Low-temperature hot spots in this area were detected in 2000 by the Galileo Photopolarimeter Radiometer and in 1979 by Voyager IRIS. However, neither the Galileo NIMS instrument nor any instrument on the New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by Io in 2007, saw any evidence of an Acala hot spot. It is also possible that earlier ground-based disk-integrated observations of hot spots are due to Acala, even though they were originally attributed to other volcanoes, such as Loki. These include outbursts in 1978 and 1990 and a persistent low-temperature source in the 1980 and 1990s. From these observations, we propose that Acala consists of highly variable high-temperature fire fountains and a large area of low-temperature, older flows. Due to these recent outbursts, we expect that any images of Acala obtained by JunoCam will show surface changes from Galileo images.
William M. Farrell et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 105
This work assesses the potential of midsized and large human landing systems to deliver water from their exhaust plumes to cold traps within lunar polar craters. It has been estimated that a total of between 2 and 60 T of surficial water was sensed by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Lyman Alpha Mapping Project on the floors of the larger permanently shadowed south polar craters. This intrinsic surficial water sensed in the far-ultraviolet is thought to be in the form of a 0.3%–2% icy regolith in the top few hundred nanometers of the surface. We find that the six past Apollo Lunar Module midlatitude landings could contribute no more than 0.36 T of water mass to this existing, intrinsic surficial water in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs). However, we find that the Starship landing plume has the potential, in some cases, to deliver over 10 T of water to the PSRs, which is a substantial fraction (possibly >20%) of the existing intrinsic surficial water mass. This anthropogenic contribution could possibly overlay and mix with the naturally occurring icy regolith at the uppermost surface. A possible consequence is that the origin of the intrinsic surficial icy regolith, which is still undetermined, could be lost as it mixes with the extrinsic anthropogenic contribution. We suggest that existing and future orbital and landed assets be used to examine the effect of polar landers on the cold traps within PSRs.
Bastian Knieling et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 104
Gaussian process (GP) regression is a nonparametric Bayesian approach that has been used successfully in various astronomical domains, especially in time-domain astronomy. The most common applications are the smoothing of data for interpolation and the detection of periodicities. The ability to create unbiased data-driven models without a predefined physical model can be a major advantage over conventional regression methods. Prior knowledge can be included by setting boundary conditions or constraining hyperparameter values, while unknown hyperparameters are optimized during the conditioning of the model. We have adapted and transformed previous approaches of GP regression and introduce three new applications for this regression method, especially in the context of stellar occultations: the modeling of occultation light curves, the correction of public JPL ephemerides of minor planets based on publicly available image data of the Zwicky Transient Facility, and the detection of natural satellites. We used data from observations of stellar occultations to validate the models and achieved promising results in all cases, and thus we confirmed the flexibility of GP regression models. Considering various existing use cases in addition to our novel applications, GP regression can be used to model diverse data sets addressing a wide range of problems. The accuracy of the model depends on the input data and on the set boundary conditions. Generally, high-quality data allow the usage of loose boundary conditions, while low-quality data require more restrictive boundary conditions to avoid overfitting.
Angelo Zinzi et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 103
The ASI cubesat LICIACube has been part of the first planetary defense mission DART, having among its scopes to complement the DRACO images to better constrain the Dimorphos shape. LICIACube had two different cameras, LEIA and LUKE, and to accomplish its goal, it exploited the unique possibility of acquiring images of the Dimorphos hemisphere not seen by DART from a vantage point of view, in both time and space. This work is indeed aimed at constraining the tridimensional shape of Dimorphos, starting from both LUKE images of the nonimpacted hemisphere of Dimorphos and the results obtained by DART looking at the impacted hemisphere. To this aim, we developed a semiautomatic Computer Vision algorithm, named VADER, able to identify objects of interest on the basis of physical characteristics, subsequently used as input to retrieve the shape of the ellipse projected in the LUKE images analyzed. Thanks to this shape, we then extracted information about the Dimorphos ellipsoid by applying a series of quantitative geometric considerations. Although the solution space coming from this analysis includes the triaxial ellipsoid found by using DART images, we cannot discard the possibility that Dimorphos has a more elongated shape, more similar to what is expected from previous theories and observations. The result of our work seems therefore to emphasize the unique value of the LICIACube mission and its images, making even clearer the need of having different points of view to accurately define the shape of an asteroid.
Alexis Bouquet et al 2024 Planet. Sci. J. 5 102
We performed experiments of implantation of energetic sulfur ions (105 keV) into 2:1 water:propane ices at 80 K and analyzed the resulting refractory organic matter with ultrahigh-resolution mass spectrometry. Our goal was to characterize the organic matter processed in the surface conditions of Europa, where it would receive a heavy flux of energetic particles, including sulfur ions, and determine whether organosulfurs could be formed in these conditions, using the simplest alkane that can exist in solid form on Europa's surface. We find that the produced organic matter contains a large variety of both aliphatic and aromatic compounds (several thousand unique formulae), including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), with masses up to 900 amu. A large number of aromatic hydrocarbons is found along with oxygenated, mostly aliphatic, compounds. Organosulfurs are found in both CHS and CHOS form, demonstrating they can be formed from any organic compound through sulfur implantation. These organosulfurs' properties (aromaticity, mass) appear similar to the rest of the organic matter, albeit their low quantity does not allow for a thorough comparison. Our results have implications for the type of refractory organic matter that could be observed by the JUICE and Europa Clipper space missions and how the surface of Europa could generate complex organics, including PAHs and organosulfurs, that could then enrich the subsurface ocean. In particular, they indicate that a large diversity of organic matter, including organosulfurs, can be formed from simple precursors in a geologically short time frame under the ion flux that reaches Europa.