Planetary Sciences
Research in the planetary sciences at AER is focused on the theoretical modeling of the local and extended atmospheres of planets, satellites, and comets, with particular interest on establishing a fundamental understanding of their relevant physical mechanisms and in applying this understanding to the explanation of observational data. These studies are important in achieving a comprehensive knowledge of the basic properties of these bodies as well as many fascinating interactions coupling the atmospheres, ionospheres, planetary magnetospheres, the solar wind, and the solar radiation field.
In the past several years, particular topics of interest have included the sodium and potassium atmospheres of Mercury, the Moon, and Io; the formation of polar caps and the cloud-ozone radiative interactions for Mars; the structure and transport of planetary magnetospheres and their complex plasma-neutral interactions with the atmospheres of the satellites Io and Titan, respectively, in the Jupiter and Saturn systems; and the structure and dynamics of the inner comae, extended atmospheres, and ion tails of comets such as the spectacular and recently widely observed Comets Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. In addition, more recent areas of research include the evolution of gaseous systems in a gravitational field driven by inherently nonlinear and nonequilibrium interactions such as the collisionally thick Triton hydrogen torus surrounding Neptune, the local atmospheres of Jupiter's active volcanic satellite Io and water ice coated satellites Europa and Ganymede impacted by the heavy-ion planetary magnetosphere, and the atmospheres of Pluto and its satellite Charon.
Programs in Planetary Atmospheres
AER's
research in planetary sciences is supported by NASA and NSF. The
research of a number of projects is directly related to various
spacecraft missions of NASA and involves the active participation
of AER scientists in the planning, acquisition, and interpretation
of scientific information returned by spacecraft instruments.
Of particular current interest is data for Jupiter, its rings and satellites, and its spatially extensive magnetosphere collected by the Galileo Spacecraft from 1995 to 2003 and by the New Horizon Spacecraft in its flyby of Jupiter in February 2007 as well as similar data for the Saturn System collected since 2003 by the Cassini Spacecraft.
Through a number of collaborations with
scientists at other institutions, the breadth of AER's involvement
is also enhanced by the study of observational information obtained
from various ground-based telescopes and rocket instruments as
well as from the earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.