Irregular mare patches (IMPs), recently discovered on the Moon, are eruptions of magma on the lunar surface, and their origins are still in question. While prior studies on IMPs have mainly focused on optical image analysis, in this study, an analysis of the characteristics of minerals is performed exemplary for the first time. Modified Gaussian model (MGM) deconvolution was applied to the infrared spectrum to confirm the properties of the mafic mineral. Mafic minerals were analyzed for 6 olivine-rich (Ol-rich) IMPs out of 91 currently reported, and only 4 of them yielded results of significance. All four sites showed more abundance of Fe than Mg, and manifested a weak relationship with Mg-suite rock. However, a problem was discovered during the MGM application process due to pilot implementation. In order to solve this problem, it is required to adjust the MGM initial condition settings more precisely and to increase the signal to noise ratio of the observation data. Moreover, it is necessary to analyze the mineral properties for all IMPs considering minerals other than Ol and utilize them to deduce the origin of the IMPs.
By providing an environment where energetic particles and micrometeorites can not penetrate, caves on Mars may serve as a human shelter in future Mars explorations. More than 1,000 cave entrance candidates have been detected; however, their physical characteristics that can be utilized in detecting more candidates have not been explored in detail. In this paper, we explore the nighttime temperature of 100 cave entrance candidates and their surrounding areas to investigate 1) the nighttime temperature tendencies relative to their surrounding areas and 2) the extent of these temperature differences. We find that 79% of the cave entrance candidates exhibit higher temperatures than the surrounding areas, and 59% show a temperature difference over 20K, suggesting that the cave entrances may generally show higher temperatures than the surrounding areas during the nighttime.
The dynamics of the outer zone radiation belt has received a lot of attention mainly due to the correlation between the occurrence of enhancing relativistic electron flux and spacecraft operation anomalies or even failures (e.g., Baker et al. 1994). Relativistic electron events are often observed during great storms associated with ultra low frequency (ULF) waves. For example, a large buildup of relativistic electrons was observed during the great storm of March 24, 1991 (e.g., Li et al. 1993; Hudson et al. 1995; Mann et al. 2013). However, the dominant processes which accelerate magnetospheric radiation belt electrons to MeV energies are not well understood. In this paper, we present observations of Pc5 ULF waves in the recovery phase of the Bastille day storm of July 16, 2000 and electron and proton flux simultaneously oscillating with the same frequencies as the waves. The mechanism for the observed electron and proton flux modulations is examined using groundbased and satellite observations. During this storm time, multiple packets of discrete frequency Pc5 ULF waves appeared associated with energetic particle flux oscillations. We model the drift paths of electrons and protons to determine if the particles drift through the ULF wave to understand why some particle fluxes are modulated by the ULF waves and others are not. We also analyze the flux oscillations of electrons and protons as a function of energy to determine if the particle modulations are caused by a ULF wave drift resonance or advection of a particle density gradient. We suggest that the energetic electron and proton modulations by Pc5 ULF waves provide further evidence in support of the important role that ULF waves play in outer radiation belt dyanamics during storm times.
Because of the small number of spacecraft available in the Earth’s magnetosphere at any given time, it is not possible to obtain direct measurements of the fundamental quantities, such as the magnetic field and plasma density, with a spatial coverage necessary for studying, global magnetospheric phenomena. In such cases, empirical as well as physics-based models are proven to be extremely valuable. This requires not only having high fidelity and high accuracy models, but also knowing the weakness and strength of such models. In this study, we assess the accuracy of the widely used Tsyganenko magnetic field models, T96, T01, and T04, by comparing the calculated magnetic field with the ones measured in-situ by the GOES satellites during geomagnetically disturbed times. We first set the baseline accuracy of the models from a data-model comparison during the intervals of geomagnetically quiet times. During quiet times, we find that all three models exhibit a systematic error of about 10% in the magnetic field magnitude, while the error in the field vector direction is on average less than 1%. We then assess the model accuracy by a data-model comparison during twelve geomagnetic storm events. We find that the errors in both the magnitude and the direction are well maintained at the quiet-time level throughout the storm phase, except during the main phase of the storms in which the largest error can reach 15% on average, and exceed well over 70% in the worst case. Interestingly, the largest error occurs not at the Dst minimum but 2–3 hours before the minimum. Finally, the T96 model has consistently underperformed compared to the other models, likely due to the lack of computation for the effects of ring current. However, the T96 and T01 models are accurate enough for most of the time except for highly disturbed periods.
We investigated the chemical composition of the planetary host halo star HD47536 via high-resolution spectral observations recorded using a 1.5 meter Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) telescope (Chile). Furthermore, we determined the abundances of 38 chemical elements. Both light and heavy elements were overabundant compared to the iron group elements. The abundance pattern of HD47536 was similar to that of halo-type stars, with an enrichment of heavy elements. We analyzed the relationships between the relative abundances of chemical elements and their second ionization potentials and condensation temperatures. We demonstrated that the interplay of charge-exchange reactions owing to the accretion of interstellar matter and the gas-dust separation mechanism can influence the initial abundances and can be used to qualitatively explain the abundance patterns in the atmosphere of HD47536.
Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), also known as Danuri, was successfully launched on 4 Aug. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station using a Space-X Falcon-9 rocket. Flight dynamics (FD) operational readiness was one of the critical parts to be checked before the flight. To demonstrate FD software’s readiness and enhance the operator’s contingency response capabilities, KPLO FD specialists planned, organized, and conducted four simulations and two rehearsals before the KPLO launch. For the efficiency and integrity of FD simulation and rehearsal, different sets of blind test data were prepared, including the simulated tracking measurements that incorporated dynamical model errors, maneuver execution errors, and other errors associated with a tracking system. This paper presents the simulation and rehearsal results with lessons learned for the KPLO FD operational readiness checkout. As a result, every functionality of FD operation systems is firmly secured based on the operation procedure with an enhancement of contingency operational response capability. After conducting several simulations and rehearsals, KPLO FD specialists were much more confident in the flight teams’ ability to overcome the challenges in a realistic flight and FD software’s reliability in flying the KPLO. Moreover, the results of this work will provide numerous insights to the FD experts willing to prepare deep space flight operations.