From The Southwest Research Institute : “SwRI and JPL study suggests explanation for unusual radar signatures of icy satellites in the outer solar system”

From The Southwest Research Institute

3.23.23

A study co-authored by Southwest Research Institute Senior Research Scientist Dr. Jason Hofgartner explains the unusual radar signatures of icy satellites orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Their radar signatures, which differ significantly from those of rocky worlds and most ice on Earth, have long been a vexing question for the scientific community.

“Six different models have been published in an attempt to explain the radar signatures of the icy moons that orbit Jupiter and Saturn,” said Hofgartner, first author of the study, which was published this month in Nature Astronomy [below]. “The way these objects scatter radar is drastically different than that of the rocky worlds, such as Mars and Earth, as well as smaller bodies such as asteroids and comets.”

The objects are also extremely bright, even in areas where they should be darker.

A study co-authored by Southwest Research Institute Senior Research Scientist Dr. Jason Hofgartner explains the unusual radar signatures of icy satellites orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Their radar signatures, which differ significantly from those of rocky worlds and most ice on Earth, have long been a vexing question for the scientific community. This is Europa. Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI.

“When we look up at Earth’s moon it looks like a circular disk, even though we know it’s a sphere. Planets and other moons similarly look like disks through telescopes,” Hofgartner said. “While making radar observations, the center of the disk is very bright and the edges much darker. The change from center to edge is very different for these icy satellites than for rocky worlds.”

In collaboration with Dr. Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Hofgartner argues that the extraordinary radar properties of these satellites, such as their reflectiveness and polarization (the orientation of light waves as they propagate through space) is very likely to be explained by the coherent backscatter opposition effect (CBOE).

“When you’re at opposition, the Sun is positioned directly behind you on the line between you and an object, the surface appears much brighter than it would otherwise,” Hofgartner said. “This is known as the opposition effect. In the case of radar, a transmitter stands in for the Sun and a receiver for your eyes.”

An icy surface, Hofgartner explained, has an even stronger opposition effect than normal. For every scattering path of light bouncing through the ice, at opposition there is a path in the exact opposite direction. Because the two paths have precisely the same length, they combine coherently, resulting in further brightening.

In the 1990s, studies were published stating that the CBOE was one explanation for the anomalous radar signatures of icy satellites, but other explanations could explain the data equally well. Hofgartner and Hand improved the polarization description of the CBOE model and also showed that their modified CBOE model is the only published model that can explain all of the icy satellite radar properties.

“I think that tells us that the surfaces of these objects and their subsurfaces down to many meters are very tortured,” Hofgartner said. “They’re not very uniform. Icy rocks dominate the landscape, perhaps looking somewhat like the chaotic mess after a landslide. That would explain why the light is bouncing in so many different directions, giving us these unusual polarization signatures.”

The radar observations Hofgartner and Hand used were from the Arecibo Observatory, which was one of only two telescopes making radar observations of icy satellites until it was severely damaged by the collapse of its support structure, antenna and dome assembly and subsequently decommissioned.

NAIC Arecibo Observatory operated by University of Central Florida, Yang Enterprises and Ana G. Méndez University [Universidad Ana G. Méndez, Recinto de Cupey] (PR) Altitude 497 m (1,631 ft), which has now collapsed.

The researchers hope to make follow-up observations when possible and plan to study additional archival data that may shed even more light on icy satellites and the CBOE, as well as radar studies of ice at the poles of Mercury, the Moon, and Mars.

Nature Astronomy

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

The Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.

From The Southwest Research Institute : “SwRI scientists compile Cassini’s unique observations of Saturn’s rings”

From The Southwest Research Institute

10.18.22

Stunning overhead view of Saturn’s rings from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. A new study uses Cassini data to probe the secrets of Saturn’s rings, including the sizes and compositions of the ring particles. Image via Courtesy of NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ SSI/ Cornell/ SwRI.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ASI Italian Space Agency [Agenzia Spaziale Italiana](IT) Cassini Spacecraft.

NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft schematic.

Southwest Research Institute scientists have compiled 41 solar occultation observations of Saturn’s rings from the Cassini mission. The compilation, published recently in the scientific journal Icarus [below], will inform future investigations of the particle size distribution and composition of Saturn’s rings, key elements to understanding their formation and evolution.

“For nearly two decades, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shared the wonders of Saturn and its family of icy moons and signature rings, but we still don’t definitively know the origins of the ring system,” said Dr. Stephanie Jarmak, a researcher in the SwRI Space Science Division. “Evidence indicates that the rings are relatively young and could have formed from the destruction of an icy satellite or a comet. However, to support any one origin theory, we need to have a good idea of the size of particles making up the rings.”

Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS) was uniquely sensitive to some of the smallest ring particles, particularly with the observations it made in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength.

UVIS. Credit: University of Colorado-Boulder/Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

To determine the size of the ring particles, UVIS observed them when the instrument was pointed at the Sun, looking through the rings in what is known as a solar occultation. Ring particles partially blocked the path of the light, providing a direct measurement of the optical depth, a key parameter for determining the size and composition of the ring particles.

“Given the wavelength of the light coming from the Sun, these observations gave us insight into the smallest particle sizes with Saturn’s rings,” Jarmak said. “UVIS can detect dust particles at the micron level, helping us understand the origin, collisional activity and destruction of the ring particles within the system.”

The compilation also delves into the variations in the optical depth of occultation observations, which can help determine particle size and composition. During an occultation, light emitted by a background source, such as the Sun, is absorbed and scattered by the particles in the light’s path. The amount of light blocked by ring particles provides a direct measurement of the ring optical depth.

Including optical depth is vital to understanding the structure of the rings. The research measured the optical depth as a function of the viewing geometry, which refers to the observation angles of the ring system with respect to the Cassini spacecraft. As light passing through the rings changes at various angles, scientists can form a picture of the rings’ structures.

“Ring systems around giant planets also provide test beds for investigating fundamental physical properties and processes in our solar system in general,” Jarmak said. “These particles are thought to result from objects colliding and forming in a disk and building up larger particles. Understanding how they form these ring systems could help us understand how planets form as well.”

The paper “Solar occultation observations of Saturn’s rings with Cassini UVIS” appears in Icarus.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S001910352200330X

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

The Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.

From The Southwest Research Institute : “SwRI scientist helps identify new evidence for habitability in Enceladus’s ocean”

From The Southwest Research Institute

9.19.22
Deb Schmid
+1 210 522 2254

The search for extraterrestrial life just got more interesting as a team of scientists including Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Christopher Glein has discovered new evidence for a key building block for life in the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. New modeling indicates that Enceladus’s ocean should be relatively rich in dissolved phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life.

SwRI Lead Scientist Dr. Christopher Glein contributed to new findings that phosphorus in the form of orthophosphate (e.g., HPO42-) is likely abundant in the subsurface ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. A soda or alkaline ocean (containing NaHCO3 and/or Na2CO3) inside of Enceladus interacts geochemically with a rocky core. Modeling indicates that this interaction promotes the dissolution of phosphate minerals, making orthophosphate readily available to possible life in the ocean. Because phosphorus is an essential ingredient for life, this finding bolsters mounting evidence for habitability within this small Saturnian moon. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

[2] From the science paper. See the science paper for appropriate links.

Thermodynamically favored form of dissolved phosphorus as a function of pH and equilibrium oxidation state (as activity of dissolved hydrogen, or fugacity of hydrogen gas in bars) at 0 °C and 70 bars (1 bar for reference in dashed lines). Within its predominance region, the indicated species would have the highest activity out of all aqueous P species if equilibrium is reached. The observationally based upper limit on a(H2,aq) (dashed green line) is from Waite et al. (4), and the theoretical upper limit on f(H2,g) (dotted black line) is from Glein et al. (21). Diphosphate species do not appear in this plot since they constitute less than ∼0.1% of the equilibrium P budget for total P concentrations up to 100 mmolal (SI Appendix, Fig. S13)

redicted concentration of orthophosphate (mainly HPO42−) in Enceladus’s ocean depending on if (A) fluoride is sufficiently abundant or (B) there is insufficient fluoride in the ocean–seafloor system to affect the oceanic abundance of P. Variation of dissolved P is controlled by the solubility of the least soluble P-bearing minerals (SI Appendix, Fig. S3), which is largely affected by the variation of major cations (SI Appendix, Fig. S2). Symbols show different cases for the concentrations of total carbonate species and total ammonia (SI Appendix, Table S2). The inferred pH range of Enceladus ocean water (light gray shading) also comes from interpretations of Cassini data (14, 20, 22, 31, 32). The dark gray band indicates the range of P concentration that is implied by the present modeling of water–rock equilibrium. The P concentration of modern Earth seawater (olive green box) is from Berner and Berner (19).

Enceladus. Credit: NASA.

“Enceladus is one of the prime targets in humanity’s search for life in our solar system,” said Glein, a leading expert in extraterrestrial oceanography. He is a co-author of a paper in the PNAS [below] describing this research. “In the years since NASA’s Cassini spacecraft visited the Saturn system, we have been repeatedly blown away by the discoveries made possible by the collected data.”

National Aeronautics and Space Administration/European Space Agency [La Agencia Espacial Europea][Agence spatiale européenne][Europäische Weltraumorganization](EU)/ASI Italian Space Agency [Agenzia Spaziale Italiana](IT) Cassini Spacecraft.

The Cassini spacecraft discovered Enceladus’s subsurface liquid water and analyzed samples as plumes of ice grains and water vapor erupted into space from cracks in the moon’s icy surface.

“What we have learned is that the plume contains almost all the basic requirements of life as we know it,” Glein said. “While the bioessential element phosphorus has yet to be identified directly, our team discovered evidence for its availability in the ocean beneath the moon’s icy crust.”

One of the most profound discoveries in planetary science over the past 25 years is that worlds with oceans beneath a surface layer of ice are common in our solar system. Such worlds include the icy satellites of the giant planets, such as Europa, Titan and Enceladus, as well as more distant bodies like Pluto. Worlds like Earth with surface oceans must reside within a narrow range of distances from their host stars to maintain the temperatures that support surface liquid water. Interior water ocean worlds, however, can occur over a much wider range of distances, greatly expanding the number of habitable worlds likely to exist across the galaxy.

“The quest for extraterrestrial habitability in the solar system has shifted focus, as we now look for the building blocks for life, including organic molecules, ammonia, sulfur-bearing compounds as well as the chemical energy needed to support life,” Glein said. “Phosphorus presents an interesting case because previous work suggested that it might be scarce in the ocean of Enceladus, which would dim the prospects for life.”

Phosphorus in the form of phosphates is vital for all life on Earth. It is essential for the creation of DNA and RNA, energy-carrying molecules, cell membranes, bones and teeth in people and animals, and even the sea’s microbiome of plankton.

Team members performed thermodynamic and kinetic modeling that simulates the geochemistry of phosphorus based on insights from Cassini about the ocean-seafloor system on Enceladus. In the course of their research, they developed the most detailed geochemical model to date of how seafloor minerals dissolve into Enceladus’s ocean and predicted that phosphate minerals would be unusually soluble there.

“The underlying geochemistry has an elegant simplicity that makes the presence of dissolved phosphorus inevitable, reaching levels close to or even higher than those in modern Earth seawater,” Glein said. “What this means for astrobiology is that we can be more confident than before that the ocean of Enceladus is habitable.”

According to Glein, the next step is clear: “We need to get back to Enceladus to see if a habitable ocean is actually inhabited.”

Science paper:
PNAS

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

The Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.

From The Southwest Research Institute : “SwRI scientists identify a possible source for Charon’s red cap”

From The Southwest Research Institute

June 21, 2022

The Southwest Research Institute scientists combined data from NASA’s New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modeling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto’s moon Charon and how it may have formed. New findings suggest drastic seasonal surges in Charon’s thin atmosphere combined with light breaking down the condensing methane frost may be key to understanding the origins of Charon’s red polar zones. Courtesy of NASA / Johns Hopkins APL / SwRI.

National Aeronautics Space Agency New Horizons spacecraft.

Southwest Research Institute scientists combined data from NASA’s New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modeling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto’s moon Charon and how it may have formed. This first-ever description of Charon’s dynamic methane atmosphere using new experimental data provides a fascinating glimpse into the origins of this moon’s red spot as described in two recent papers.

“Prior to New Horizons, the best Hubble images of Pluto revealed only a fuzzy blob of reflected light,” said SwRI’s Randy Gladstone, a member of the New Horizons science team. “In addition to all the fascinating features discovered on Pluto’s surface, the flyby revealed an unusual feature on Charon, a surprising red cap centered on its north pole.”

Soon after the 2015 encounter, New Horizons scientists proposed that a reddish “tholin-like” material at Charon’s pole could be synthesized by ultraviolet light breaking down methane molecules. These are captured after escaping from Pluto and then frozen onto the moon’s polar regions during their long winter nights. Tholins are sticky organic residues formed by chemical reactions powered by light, in this case the Lyman-alpha ultraviolet glow scattered by interplanetary hydrogen atoms.

“Our findings indicate that drastic seasonal surges in Charon’s thin atmosphere as well as light breaking down the condensing methane frost are key to understanding the origins of Charon’s red polar zone,” said SwRI’s Dr. Ujjwal Raut, lead author of a paper titled “Charon’s Refractory Factory” in the journal Science Advances [below]. “This is one of the most illustrative and stark examples of surface-atmospheric interactions so far observed at a planetary body.”

The team realistically replicated Charon surface conditions at SwRI’s new Center for Laboratory Astrophysics and Space Science Experiments (CLASSE) to measure the composition and color of hydrocarbons produced on Charon’s winter hemisphere as methane freezes beneath the Lyman-alpha glow. The team fed the measurements into a new atmospheric model of Charon to show methane breaking down into residue on Charon’s north polar spot.

“Our team’s novel ‘dynamic photolysis’ experiments provided new limits on the contribution of interplanetary Lyman-alpha to the synthesis of Charon’s red material,” Raut said. “Our experiment condensed methane in an ultra-high vacuum chamber under exposure to Lyman-alpha photons to replicate with high fidelity the conditions at Charon’s poles.”

SwRI scientists also developed a new computer simulation to model Charon’s thin methane atmosphere.

“The model points to ‘explosive’ seasonal pulsations in Charon’s atmosphere due to extreme shifts in conditions over Pluto’s long journey around the Sun,” said Dr. Ben Teolis, lead author of a related paper titled “Extreme Exospheric Dynamics at Charon: Implications for the Red Spot” in Geophysical Research Letters [below].

The team input the results from SwRI’s ultra-realistic experiments into the atmospheric model to estimate the distribution of complex hydrocarbons emerging from methane decomposition under the influence of ultraviolet light. The model has polar zones primarily generating ethane, a colorless material that does not contribute to a reddish color.

“We think ionizing radiation from the solar wind decomposes the Lyman-alpha-cooked polar frost to synthesize increasingly complex, redder materials responsible for the unique albedo on this enigmatic moon,” Raut said. “Ethane is less volatile than methane and stays frozen to Charon’s surface long after spring sunrise. Exposure to the solar wind may convert ethane into persistent reddish surface deposits contributing to Charon’s red cap.”

“The team is set to investigate the role of solar wind in the formation of the red pole,” said SwRI’s Dr. Josh Kammer, who secured continued support from NASA’s New Frontier Data Analysis Program.

Extreme Exospheric Dynamics at Charon: Implications for the Red Spot in Geophysical Research Letters.

Charon’s Refractory Factory in Science Advances.

For more information, visit Planetary Science or contact Deb Schmid, +1 210 522 2254, Communications Department, Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238-5166.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

The Southwest Research Institute, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.

From The Southwest Research Institute: “SwRI-led team finds younger exoplanets better candidates when looking for other Earths”

From The Southwest Research Institute

May 3, 2022

As the scientific community searches for worlds orbiting nearby stars that could potentially harbor life, new Southwest Research Institute-led research suggests that younger rocky exoplanets are more likely to support temperate, Earth-like climates.

An SwRI-led study suggests that host-star age and radionuclide abundance will help determine both an exoplanet’s history and its current likelihood of being temperate today. For example, the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 is home to the largest group of roughly Earth-sized planets ever found in a single stellar system with seven rocky siblings including four in the habitable zone. But at around 8 billion years old, these worlds are roughly 2 billion years older than the most optimistic degassing lifetime predicted by this study and unlikely to support a temperate climate today. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

In the past, scientists have focused on planets situated within a star’s habitable zone, where it is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid surface water to exist. However, even within this so-called “Goldilocks zone,” planets can still develop climates inhospitable to life. Sustaining temperate climates also requires a planet have sufficient heat to power a planetary-scale carbon cycle. A key source of this energy is the decay of the radioactive isotopes of uranium, thorium and potassium. This critical heat source can power a rocky exoplanet’s mantle convection, a slow creeping motion of the region between a planet’s core and crust that eventually melts at the surface. Surface volcanic degassing is a primary source of CO2 to the atmosphere, which helps keep a planet warm. Without mantle degassing, planets are unlikely to support temperate, habitable climates like the Earth’s.

“We know these radioactive elements are necessary to regulate climate, but we don’t know how long these elements can do this, because they decay over time,” said Dr. Cayman Unterborn, lead author of an Astrophysical Journal Letters paper about the research. “Also, radioactive elements aren’t distributed evenly throughout the Galaxy, and as planets age, they can run out of heat and degassing will cease. Because planets can have more or less of these elements than the Earth, we wanted to understand how this variation might affect just how long rocky exoplanets can support temperate, Earth-like climates.”

Studying exoplanets is challenging. Today’s technology cannot measure the composition of an exoplanet’s surface much less that of its interior. Scientists can, however, measure the abundance of elements in a star spectroscopically by studying how light interacts with the elements in a star’s upper layers. Using these data, scientists can infer what a star’s orbiting planets are made of using stellar composition as a rough proxy for its planets.

“Using host stars to estimate the amount of these elements that would go into planets throughout the history of the Milky Way, we calculated how long we can expect planets to have enough volcanism to support a temperate climate before running out of power,” Unterborn said. “Under the most pessimistic conditions we estimate that this critical age is only around 2 billion years old for an Earth-mass planet and reaching 5–6 billion years for higher-mass planets under more optimistic conditions. For the few planets we do have ages for, we found only a few were young enough for us to confidently say they can have surface degassing of carbon today, when we’d observe it with, say, the James Webb Space Telescope.”

This research combined direct and indirect observational data with dynamical models to understand which parameters most affect an exoplanet’s ability to support a temperate climate. More laboratory experiments and computational modeling will quantify the reasonable range of these parameters, particularly in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope, which will provide more in-depth characterization of individual targets. With the Webb telescope it will be possible to measure the three-dimensional variation of exoplanet atmospheres. These measurements will deepen the knowledge of atmospheric processes and their interactions with the planet’s surface and interior, which will allow scientists to better estimate whether a rocky exoplanet in habitable zones is too old to be Earth-like.

“Exoplanets without active degassing are more likely to be cold, snowball planets,” Unterborn said. “While we can’t say the other planets aren’t degassing today, we can say that they would require special conditions to do so, such as having tidal heating or undergoing plate tectonics. This includes the high-profile rocky exoplanets discovered in the TRAPPIST-1 star system. Regardless, younger planets with temperate climates may be the simplest places to look for other Earths.”

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency(USA) missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.

From The Southwest Research Institute: “SwRI-led study points to multiple eruptions forming Pluto’s giant ice volcanos”

From The Southwest Research Institute

March 29, 2022

Southwest Research Institute scientists led a New Horizons mission team that determined multiple episodes of cryovolcanism may have created some kinds of surface structures on Pluto, the likes of which are not seen anywhere else in the solar system.

National Aeronautics Space Agency(USA) New Horizons(US) spacecraft.

Material expelled from below the surface of this distant, icy planet could have created a region of large domes and rises flanked by hills, mounds and depressions. New Horizons was NASA’s mission to make the first exploration of Pluto and its system of five moons.

“The particular structures we studied are unique to Pluto, at least so far,” said Dr. Kelsi Singer, New Horizons Deputy Project Scientist from the Southwest Research Institute, and lead author of the paper published [today] in Nature Communications. “Rather than erosion or other geologic processes, cryovolcanic activity appears to have extruded large amounts of material onto Pluto’s exterior and resurfaced an entire region of the hemisphere New Horizons saw up close.”

SwRI-led study points to multiple eruptions forming Pluto’s giant ice volcanos. Credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Singer’s team analyzed the geomorphology and composition of an area located southwest of Pluto’s bright, icy “heart,” Sputnik Planitia. The cryovolcanic region contains multiple large domes, ranging from 1 to 7 kilometers (about one-half to 4 miles) tall and 30 to 100 or more kilometers (about 18 to 60 miles) across, that sometimes merge to form more complex structures. Irregular interconnected hills, mounds and depressions, called hummocky terrain, cover the sides and tops of many of the larger structures. Few if any craters exist in this area, indicating it is geologically young. The largest structures in the region rival the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii.

Even with the addition of ammonia and other antifreeze-like components to lower the melting temperature of water ices — a process similar to the way road salt inhibits ice from forming on streets and highways — the extremely low temperatures and atmospheric pressures on Pluto rapidly freeze liquid water on its surface.

Because these are young geologic terrains and large amounts of material were required to create them, it is possible that Pluto’s interior structure retained heat into the relatively recent past, enabling water-ice-rich materials to be deposited onto the surface. Cryovolcanic flows capable of creating the large structures could have occurred if the material had a toothpaste-like consistency, behaved somewhat like solid ice glaciers flow on Earth or had a frozen shell or cap with material that was still able to flow underneath.

Other geologic processes considered to create the features are unlikely, according to the team. For example, the area has significant variations in the highs and lows of the terrain that could not have been created through erosion. Singer’s team also saw no evidence of extensive glacial or sublimation erosion in the hummocky terrain surrounding the largest structures.

“One of the benefits of exploring new places in the solar system is that we find things we weren’t expecting,” said Singer. “These giant, strange-looking cryovolcanoes observed by New Horizons are a great example of how we are expanding our knowledge of volcanic processes and geologic activity on icy worlds.”

Images obtained in 2015 by the New Horizons spacecraft revealed diverse geological features populating across Pluto, including mountains, valleys, plains, and glaciers. They were particularly intriguing because the frigid temperatures at Pluto’s distance were expected to produce a frozen, geologically inactive world.

“This newly published work is truly landmark, showing once again how much geologic personality Pluto has for such a small planet, and how it has been incredibly active over long periods,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Dr. Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. “Even years after the flyby, these new results by Singer and coworkers show that there’s much more to learn about the marvels of Pluto than we imagined before it was explored up close.”

For more information visit Planetary Science or contact Maria Stothoff, +1 210 522 3305, Communications Department, Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238-5166.

See the full article here .

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Southwest Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit applied research and development organization. The staff of nearly 2,800 specializes in the creation and transfer of technology in engineering and the physical sciences. SwRI’s technical divisions offer a wide range of technical expertise and services in such areas as engine design and development, emissions certification testing, fuels and lubricants evaluation, chemistry, space science, nondestructive evaluation, automation, mechanical engineering, electronics, and more.

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the oldest and largest independent, nonprofit, applied research and development (R&D) organizations in the United States. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, SwRI provides contract research and development services to government and industrial clients.

The institute consists of nine technical divisions that offer multidisciplinary, problem-solving services in a variety of areas in engineering and the physical sciences. The Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, also operates on the SwRI grounds. More than 4,000 projects are active at the institute at any given time. These projects are funded almost equally between the government and commercial sectors. At the close of fiscal year 2019, the staff numbered approximately 3,000 employees and research volume was almost $674 million. The institute provided more than $8.7 million to fund innovative research through its internally sponsored R&D program.

A partial listing of research areas includes space science and engineering; automation; robotics and intelligent systems; avionics and support systems; bioengineering; chemistry and chemical engineering; corrosion and electrochemistry; earth and planetary sciences; emissions research; engineering mechanics; fire technology; fluid systems and machinery dynamics; and fuels and lubricants. Additional areas include geochemistry and mining engineering; hydrology and geohydrology; materials sciences and fracture mechanics; modeling and simulation; nondestructive evaluation; oil and gas exploration; pipeline technology; surface modification and coatings; and vehicle, engine, and powertrain design, research and development. In 2019, staff members published 673 papers in the technical literature; made 618 presentations at technical conferences, seminars and symposia around the world; submitted 48 invention disclosures; filed 33 patent applications; and received 41 U.S. patent awards.

SwRI research scientists have led several National Aeronautics Space Agency missions, including the New Horizons mission to Pluto; the Juno mission to Jupiter; and the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission(US) to study the Earth’s magnetosphere.

SwRI initiates contracts with clients based on consultations and prepares a formal proposal outlining the scope of work. Subject to client wishes, programs are kept confidential. As part of a long-held tradition, patent rights arising from sponsored research are often assigned to the client. SwRI generally retains the rights to institute-funded advancements.

The institute’s headquarters occupy more than 2.3 million square feet of office and laboratory space on more than 1,200 acres in San Antonio. SwRI has technical offices and laboratories in Boulder, Colorado; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Warner-Robins, Georgia; Ogden, Utah; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Rockville, Maryland; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Beijing, China; and other locations.

Technology Today, SwRI’s technical magazine, is published three times each year to spotlight the research and development projects currently underway. A complementary Technology Today podcast offers a new way to listen and learn about the technology, science, engineering, and research impacting lives and changing our world.