Wind-based navigation of a hot-air balloon on Titan : a feasibility study (2009)
Furfaro, Roberto, Lunine, Jonathan I., Elfes, Alberto, Reh, Kim
Current analysis of data streamed back to Earth by the Cassini spacecraft features Titan as one of the most exciting places in the solar system. NASA centers and universities around the US, as well...
Elemental abundances and minimum mass of heavy elements in the envelope of HD 189733b (2009)
Mousis, Olivier, Lunine, Jonathan I., Tinetti, Giovanna, Griffith, Caitlin A., Showman, Adam P., Alibert, Yann, ...
Oxygen (O) and carbon (C) have been inferred recently to be subsolar in abundance from spectra of the atmosphere of the transiting hot Jupiter HD 189733b. Yet, the mass and radius of the planet...
A primordial origin for the atmospheric methane of Saturn's moon Titan (2009)
Mousis, Olivier, Lunine, Jonathan I., Pasek, Matthew, Cordier, Daniel, Waite Jr., J. Hunter, Mandt, Kathleen E., ...
The origin of Titan's atmospheric methane is a key issue for understanding the origin of the Saturnian satellite system. It has been proposed that serpentinization reactions in Titan's interior could...
Determining Titan surface topography from Cassini SAR data (2009)
Stiles, Bryan W., Hensley, Scott, Gim, Yonggyu, Bates, David M., Kirk, Randolph L., Hayes, Alex, ...
A technique, referred to as SARTopo, has been developed for obtaining surface height estimates with 10 km horizontal resolution and 75 m vertical resolution of the surface of Titan along each Cassini...
Dynamical Models of Terrestrial Planet Formation (2009)
Lunine, Jonathan I., O'Brien, David P., Raymond, Sean N., Morbidelli, Alessandro, Quinn, Thomas, Graps, Amara
We review the problem of the formation of terrestrial planets, with particular emphasis on the interaction of dynamical and geochemical models. The lifetime of gas around stars in the process of...
Determination of the minimum masses of heavy elements in the envelopes of Jupiter and Saturn (2008)
Mousis, Olivier, Marboeuf, Ulysse, Lunine, Jonathan I., Alibert, Yann, Fletcher, Leigh N., Orton, Glenn S., ...
We calculate the minimum mass of heavy elements required in the envelopes of Jupiter and Saturn to match the observed oversolar abundances of volatiles. Because the clathration efficiency remains...
Mousis, Olivier, Lunine, Jonathan I., Thomas, Caroline, Pasek, Matthew, Marboeuf, Ulysse, Alibert, Yann, ...
We describe a scenario of Titan's formation matching the constraints imposed by its current atmospheric composition. Assuming that the abundances of all elements, including oxygen, are solar in the...
Lunine, Jonathan I., Fischer, Debra, Hammel, H. B., Henning, Thomas, Hillenbrand, Lynne, Kasting, James, ...
[No abstract]
Constraints from deuterium on the formation of icy bodies in the Jovian system and beyond (2008)
Horner, Jonathan, Mousis, Olivier, Alibert, Yann, Lunine, Jonathan I., Blanc, Michel
We consider the role of deuterium as a potential marker of location and ambient conditions during the formation of small bodies in our Solar system. We concentrate in particular on the formation of...
Convective plumes and the scarcity of Titan’s clouds (2008)
Ralph D. Lorenz, Caitlin A. Griffith, Jonathan I. Lunine, Christopher P. Mckay, Nilton O. Rennò, Citation Lorenz, ...
[1] We show that simple thermodynamic models of convective plumes predict the area fraction of convective plumes (i.e., updrafts) in Titan’s atmosphere to be 12 smaller than on Earth. This result...
Titan's inventory of organic surface materials (2008)
Lorenz, Ralph D., Mitchell, Karl L., Kirk, Randolph L., Hayes, Alexander G., Aharonson, Oded, Zebker, Howard A., ...
Cassini RADAR observations now permit an initial assessment of the inventory of two classes, presumed to be organic, of Titan surface materials: polar lake liquids and equatorial dune sands. Several...
Titan's inventory of organic surface materials (2008)
Lorenz, Ralph D., Mitchell, Karl L., Kirk, Randolph L., Hayes, Alexander G., Aharonson, Oded, Zebker, Howard A., ...
Cassini RADAR observations now permit an initial assessment of the inventory of two classes, presumed to be organic, of Titan surface materials: polar lake liquids and equatorial dune sands. Several...
Lunine, Jonathan I., Fischer, Debra, Hammel, H. B., Henning, Thomas, Hillenbrand, Lynne, Kasting, James, ...
Not Available
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2007)
Martin Harwit, Kenneth Jucks, James F. Kasting, Jonathan I. Lunine, Douglas Lin, ...
and Boeing/SVS (MH and JS); NASA via contract JPL 1201749 (WT), the NASA Astrobiology Institute and the NASA Exobiology Program (DJD and JFK); and the W. M. Keck Foundation (SS). ii A major goal of...
S. Alan Stern, William B. Mckinnon, Jonathan I. Lunine
Being small, binary, and in a highly unusual orbit, Pluto was long viewed as an enigma in the outer Solar System. Here we review the historical development of ideas concerning Pluto's origin and...
Cassini RADAR observations of Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea, Iapetus, Hyperion, and Phoebe (2007)
Ostro, Steven J., West, Richard D., Janssen, Michael A., Lorenz, Ralph D., Zebker, Howard A., Black, Gregory J., ...
The Cassini mission includes 34 investigations of Saturn’s icy satellites by the 2.2-cm-wavelength (13.8-GHz) RADAR instrument, operating both as a scatterometric radar and a passive radiometer....
Soderblom, Laurence A., Kirk, Randolph L., Lunine, Jonathan I., Anderson, Jeffrey A., Baines, Kevin H., Barnes, Jason W., ...
Titan's vast equatorial fields of RADAR-dark longitudinal dunes seen in Cassini RADAR synthetic aperture images correlate with one of two dark surface units discriminated as “brown” and...
The James Webb Space Telescope (2006)
Gardner, Jonathan P., Mather, John C., Clampin, Mark, Doyon, Rene, Greenhouse, Matthew A., Hammel, Heidi B., ...
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large (6.6m), cold (50K), infrared-optimized space observatory that will be launched early in the next decade. The observatory will have four instruments: a...
Science with the James Webb space telescope (2006)
Gardner, Jonathan P., Mather, John C., Clampin, Mark, Doyon, Rene, Greenhouse, Matthew A., Hammel, Heidi B., ...
The scientific capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) fall into four themes. The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization theme seeks to identify the first luminous sources...
Raymond, Sean N., Quinn, Thomas, Lunine, Jonathan I.
The final stage in the formation of terrestrial planets consists of the accumulation of ~1000-km ``planetary embryos'' and a swarm of billions of 1-10 km ``planetesimals.'' During this process,...
Raymond, Sean N., Quinn, Thomas, Lunine, Jonathan I.
The water content and habitability of terrestrial planets are determined during their final assembly, from perhaps a hundred 1000-km "planetary embryos" and a swarm of billions of 1-10 km...
Terrestrial Planet Formation in Disks with Varying Surface Density Profiles (2005)
Raymond, Sean N., Quinn, Thomas, Lunine, Jonathan I.
The ``minimum-mass solar nebula'' (MMSN) model estimates the surface density distribution of the protoplanetary disk by assuming the planets to have formed in situ. However, significant radial...
The formation and habitability of terrestrial planets in the presence of hot jupiters (2004)
Raymond, Sean N., Quinn, Thomas, Lunine, Jonathan I.
`Hot jupiters,' giant planets with orbits very close to their parent stars, are thought to form farther away and migrate inward via interactions with a massive gas disk. If a giant planet forms and...
Making other Earths: Dynamical Simulations of Terrestrial Planet Formation and Water Delivery (2003)
Raymond, Sean N., Quinn, Thomas R., Lunine, Jonathan I.
We present results from 42 simulations of late stage planetary accretion, focusing on the delivery of volatiles (primarily water) to the terrestrial planets. Our simulations include both planetary...
Orbital migration and the frequency of giant planet formation (2002)
Trilling, David E., Lunine, Jonathan I., Benz, Willy
We present a statistical study of the post-formation migration of giant planets in a range of initial disk conditions. For given initial conditions we model the evolution of giant planet orbits under...
Modeling the Formation of Clouds in Brown Dwarf Atmospheres (2002)
Cooper, Curtis S., Sudarsky, David, Milsom, John A., Lunine, Jonathan I., Burrows, Adam
Because the opacity of clouds in substellar mass object (SMO) atmospheres depends on the composition and distribution of particle sizes within the cloud, a credible cloud model is essential for...
The occurrence of Jovian planets and the habitability of planetary systems
Planets of mass comparable to or larger than Jupiter's have been detected around over 50 stars, and for one such object a definitive test of its nature as a gas giant has been accomplished with data...
In search of planets and life around other stars
The discovery of over a dozen low-mass companions to nearby stars has intensified scientific and public interest in a longer term search for habitable planets like our own. However, the nature of the...
The occurrence of Jovian planets and the habitability of planetary systems
Planets of mass comparable to or larger than Jupiter's have been detected around over 50 stars, and for one such object a definitive test of its nature as a gas giant has been accomplished with data...
In search of planets and life around other stars
The discovery of over a dozen low-mass companions to nearby stars has intensified scientific and public interest in a longer term search for habitable planets like our own. However, the nature of the...
Physical conditions on the early Earth
The formation of the Earth as a planet was a large stochastic process in which the rapid assembly of asteroidal-to-Mars-sized bodies was followed by a more extended period of growth through...