Highly-irradiated gas giant exoplanets are predicted to show circulation patterns dominated by day-to-night heat transport and a spatial distribution of clouds that is driven by advection and local heating.
Ice Giant
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Missions & Hardware, Status Report, Uranus
Interior and Gravity Field Models for Uranus Suggest Mixed-composition Interior: Implications for the Uranus Orbiter and Probe
The interior composition and structure of Uranus are ambiguous. It is unclear whether Uranus is composed of fully differentiated layers dominated by an icy mantle or has smooth compositional gradients.
Posted inAriel, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Europa, Exploration Gear & Tech, Ganymede, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Magnetic Fields, Electromagnetism, bioelectricity,, Miranda, Oberon, Status Report, Titania, Umbriel, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Detecting Planetary Oceans: Application To The Uranus System
The discovery of Europa’s subsurface ocean has spawned a strong desire by the planetary community to return and assess the ocean’s habitability using the magnetic induction signal that Europa generates.
Posted inAstrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Status Report, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Uranus Study Report: Keck Institute for Space Studies (KISS) Workshop
Determining the internal structure of Uranus is a key objective for planetary science. Knowledge of Uranus’s bulk composition and the distribution of elements is crucial to understanding its origin and […]
Posted inAriel, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Mapping, Geodesy, Cartography, Bathymetry, Miranda, Oberon, Press Release, Titania, Umbriel, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
Uranus’ Swaying Moons Will Help Spacecraft Seek Out Hidden Oceans
When NASA’s Voyager 2 flew by Uranus in 1986, it captured grainy photographs of large ice-covered moons. Now nearly 40 years later, NASA plans to send another spacecraft to Uranus, […]
Posted inAstrogeology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Status Report
Water-rich sub-Neptunes and Rocky Super Earths Around Different Stars: Radii Shaped by Volatile Partitioning, Formation, and Evolution
The nature of sub-Neptunes remains unknown due to degeneracies in interior structure solutions. However, a statistical set of small planets with measured masses and radii has been compiled. It can […]
Posted inAstrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Neptune, Press Release, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
A Clue To What Lies Beneath The Bland Surfaces Of Uranus And Neptune
Diamond rain? Super-ionic water? These are just two proposals that planetary scientists have come up with for what lies beneath the thick, bluish, hydrogen-and-helium atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune, our […]
Posted inAI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Missions & Hardware, Press Release, Space Weather & Heliophysics, Uranus
Mining Old Data From NASA’s Voyager 2 Solves Several Uranus Mysteries
NASA’s Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus decades ago shaped scientists’ understanding of the planet but also introduced unexplained oddities. A recent data dive has offered answers.
Posted inAstrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ice Giant, Icy Worlds, Neptune, Status Report, Uranus, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography
H2-H2O Demixing In Uranus And Neptune: Adiabatic Structure Models
Demixing properties of planetary major constituents influence the interior structure and evolution of planets. Comparing experimental and computational data on the miscibility of hydrogen and water to adiabatic profiles suggests […]
Posted inAstronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Habitable Zones, Ice Giant, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Neptune, Status Report
Effects of Planetary Parameters on Disequilibrium Chemistry in Irradiated Planetary Atmospheres: From Gas Giants to Sub-Neptunes
A primary goal of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres is to constrain planetary bulk properties, such as their metallicity, C/O ratio, and intrinsic heat. However, there are significant uncertainties in many aspects […]