Articles tagged with Planetary Surfaces
The Mars Global Surveyor mission will spend nearly two years collecting data as it maps Mars' surface and atmosphere. The spacecraft will use aerobraking to trim its path around the planet, allowing for a global portrait of Mars' topography, mineral composition, and interior.
A Purdue University researcher has discovered that spacecraft can 'surf' through space at libration points, which could lower costs of planetary missions. Libration points are locations in the solar system where gravitational forces cancel each other out, creating stable orbits for spacecraft.
Researchers measured steady, imperceptible movements of faults since the 1994 Northridge earthquake using GPS data from over a dozen receivers. The force of 'after-slip' has added about six inches to nearby Granada Hills, highlighting the difficulty in fully accounting for strain leading up to earthquakes.
Observations by NASA's Galileo spacecraft indicate that UV radiation is breaking down Ganymede's ice into atomic hydrogen and atomic oxygen. This process could lead to the formation of molecular oxygen and ozone, which may be trapped in the ice or form a thin atmosphere above Ganymede's surface.
A new model developed by University of California geophysicists predicts the size and shape of tectonic plates by assuming a 30-fold increase in mantle viscosity with depth. This assumption creates a cyclic flow or convection cell with dimensions close to the plate sizes, explaining why continents are broken into large plates.