AVIATR—Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance     

Jason W. Barnes  Lawrence Lemke  Rick Foch  Christopher P. McKay  Ross A. Beyer  Jani Radebaugh  David H. Atkinson  Ralph D. Lorenz  Stéphane Le Mouélic  Sebastien Rodriguez  Jay Gundlach  Francesco Giannini  Sean Bain  F. Michael Flasar  Terry Hurford  Carrie M. Anderson  Jon Merrison  Máté ádámkovics  Simon A. Kattenhorn  Jonathan Mitchell  Devon M. Burr  Anthony Colaprete  Emily Schaller  A. James Friedson  Kenneth S. Edgett  Angioletta Coradini  Alberto Adriani  Kunio M. Sayanagi  Michael J. Malaska  David Morabito  Kim Reh 《Experimental Astronomy》2012,33(1):55-127

We describe a mission concept for a stand-alone Titan airplane mission: Aerial Vehicle for In-situ and Airborne Titan Reconnaissance (AVIATR). With independent delivery and direct-to-Earth communications, AVIATR could contribute to Titan science either alone or as part of a sustained Titan Exploration Program. As a focused mission, AVIATR as we have envisioned it would concentrate on the science that an airplane can do best: exploration of Titan??s global diversity. We focus on surface geology/hydrology and lower-atmospheric structure and dynamics. With a carefully chosen set of seven instruments??2 near-IR cameras, 1 near-IR spectrometer, a RADAR altimeter, an atmospheric structure suite, a haze sensor, and a raindrop detector??AVIATR could accomplish a significant subset of the scientific objectives of the aerial element of flagship studies. The AVIATR spacecraft stack is composed of a Space Vehicle (SV) for cruise, an Entry Vehicle (EV) for entry and descent, and the Air Vehicle (AV) to fly in Titan??s atmosphere. Using an Earth-Jupiter gravity assist trajectory delivers the spacecraft to Titan in 7.5 years, after which the AVIATR AV would operate for a 1-Earth-year nominal mission. We propose a novel ??gravity battery?? climb-then-glide strategy to store energy for optimal use during telecommunications sessions. We would optimize our science by using the flexibility of the airplane platform, generating context data and stereo pairs by flying and banking the AV instead of using gimbaled cameras. AVIATR would climb up to 14?km altitude and descend down to 3.5?km altitude once per Earth day, allowing for repeated atmospheric structure and wind measurements all over the globe. An initial Team-X run at JPL priced the AVIATR mission at FY10 $715M based on the rules stipulated in the recent Discovery announcement of opportunity. Hence we find that a standalone Titan airplane mission can achieve important science building on Cassini??s discoveries and can likely do so within a New Frontiers budget.  相似文献   

Specific suspended sediment yields of the Andean rivers of Chile and their relationship to climate,slope and vegetation     

E. Pepin  S. Carretier  J. L. Guyot  F. Escobar 《水文科学杂志》2013,58(7):1190-1205

Abstract

Using daily suspended sediment and water discharge data, we calculated the current mean annual runoff and Specific Suspended Sediment Yield (SSY) for 66 mountainous and piedmont catchments in Chile. These catchments are located from the extreme north of Chile to Southern Patagonia and cover an exceptionally wide range of climates, slopes, and vegetation. The SSY ranges mainly between 0 and 700 t km^-2 year^-1 with some exceptions as high as 1780 t km^-2 year^-1. The SSY increases between the extreme north and 33°S and then decreases toward the south. Sediment and water discharge north of 33°S occur mainly during summer. Farther south the contribution of winter precipitation increases and predominates. When the SSY database is correlated with topographic, climatic and vegetation indices, it is found to correlate significantly with runoff and mean slope only. In order to concentrate on erosion processes in the mountain range, 32 mountainous catchments were selected along a strong north–south SSY gradient between 27°S and 40°S. From north to south, SSY increases strongly with runoff and then decreases, even while runoff keeps increasing. In catchments where SSY is low, although runoff is high, the mean slope is less than 40% and the vegetation cover is greater than 8%. For the other catchments, runoff variations explain 67% of the variance in sediment yields. Thus, SSY seems to be controlled by vegetation cover and slope thresholds. In addition, SSY also correlates with glacier cover. However, a correlation between SSY and seismicity, although possible, is ambiguous.

Citation Pepin, E., Carretier, S., Guyot, J. L. & Escobar, F. (2010) Specific suspended sediment yields of the Andean rivers of Chile and their relationship to climate, slope and vegetation. Hydrol. Sci. J. 55(7), 1190–1205.  相似文献   

The key role of mica during igneous concentration of tantalum   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Aleksandr Stepanov  John A. Mavrogenes  Sebastien Meffre  Paul Davidson 《Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology》2014,167(6):1-8

Igneous rocks with high Ta concentrations share a number of similarities such as high Ta/Nb, low Ti, LREE and Zr concentrations and granitic compositions. These features can be traced through fractionated granitic series. Formation of Ta-rich melts begins with anatexis in the presence of residual biotite, followed by magmatic crystallization of biotite and muscovite. Crystallization of biotite and muscovite increases Ta/Nb and reduces the Ti content of the melt. Titanium-bearing oxides such as rutile and titanite are enriched in Ta and have the potential to deplete Ta at early stages of fractionation. However, mica crystallization suppresses their saturation and allows Ta to increase in the melt. Saturation with respect to Ta and Nb minerals occurs at the latest stages of magmatic crystallization, and columbite can originate from recrystallization of mica. We propose a model for prediction of intrusion fertility for Ta.  相似文献   

The COVID-19 pandemic and global environmental change: Emerging research needs     

Robert Barouki  Manolis Kogevinas  Karine Audouze  Kristine Belesova  Ake Bergman  Linda Birnbaum  Sandra Boekhold  Sebastien Denys  Celine Desseille  Elina Drakvik  Howard Frumkin  Jeanne Garric  Delphine Destoumieux-Garzon  Andrew Haines  Anke Huss  Genon Jensen  Spyros Karakitsios  Jana Klanova  Iida-Maria Koskela  Francine Laden  Paolo Vineis 《Chemie der Erde / Geochemistry》2010

The outbreak of COVID-19 raised numerous questions on the interactions between the occurrence of new infections, the environment, climate and health. The European Union requested the H2020 HERA project which aims at setting priorities in research on environment, climate and health, to identify relevant research needs regarding Covid-19. The emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 appears to be related to urbanization, habitat destruction, live animal trade, intensive livestock farming and global travel. The contribution of climate and air pollution requires additional studies. Importantly, the severity of COVID-19 depends on the interactions between the viral infection, ageing and chronic diseases such as metabolic, respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and obesity which are themselves influenced by environmental stressors. The mechanisms of these interactions deserve additional scrutiny. Both the pandemic and the social response to the disease have elicited an array of behavioural and societal changes that may remain long after the pandemic and that may have long term health effects including on mental health. Recovery plans are currently being discussed or implemented and the environmental and health impacts of those plans are not clearly foreseen. Clearly, COVID-19 will have a long-lasting impact on the environmental health field and will open new research perspectives and policy needs.  相似文献   

Structure, charge distribution, and electron hopping dynamics in magnetite (Fe₃O₄) (1 0 0) surfaces from first principles     

Frances N. Skomurski  Sebastien Kerisit  Kevin M. Rosso 《Geochimica et cosmochimica acta》2010,74(15):4234-7290

For the purpose of improving fundamental understanding of the redox reactivity of magnetite, quantum-mechanical calculations were applied to predict Fe²⁺ availability and electron hopping rates at magnetite (1 0 0) surfaces, with and without the presence of adsorbed water. Using a low free energy surface reconstruction (½-Fe_tet layer relaxed into the Fe_oct (1 0 0) plane), the relaxed outermost layer of both the hydrated and vacuum-terminated surfaces were found to be predominantly enriched in Fe²⁺ within the octahedral sublattice, irrespective of the presence of adsorbed water. At room temperature, mobile electrons move through the octahedral sublattice by Fe²⁺-Fe³⁺ valence interchange small polaron hopping, calculated at 10¹⁰-10¹² hops/s for bulk and bulk-like (i.e., near-surface) environments. This process is envisioned to control sustainable overall rates of interfacial redox reactions. These rates decrease by up to three orders of magnitude (10⁹ hops/s) at the (1 0 0) surface, and no significant difference is observed for vacuum-terminated versus hydrated cases. Slower hopping rates at the surface appear to arise primarily from larger reorganization energies associated with octahedral Fe²⁺-Fe³⁺ valence interchange in relaxed surface configurations, and secondarily on local charge distribution patterns surrounding Fe²⁺-Fe³⁺ valence interchange pairs. These results suggest that, with respect to the possibility that the rate and extent of surface redox reactions depend on Fe²⁺ availability and its replenishment rate, bulk electron hopping mobility is an upper-limit for magnetite and slower surface rates may need to be considered as potentially rate-limiting. They also suggest that slower hopping mobilities calculated for surface environments may be amenable to Fe²⁺-Fe³⁺ site discrimination by conventional spectroscopic probes.  相似文献   

Evidence of Quaternary active folding near Utique (Northeast Tunisia) from tectonic observations and a seismic profile     

Lassaad Mejri  Vincent Regard  Sébastien Carretier  Stéphane Brusset  Mahmoud Dlala 《Comptes Rendus Geoscience》2010,342(11):864-872

The present-day seismicity in northeastern Tunisia reported from permanent networks is of low to moderate magnitude. However, earthquakes are mentioned in the literature, specially a destructive one in the antique city of Utique. Geologic, seismic, and neotectonic investigations in this area show that the Utique fold is closely related to the recent tectonic activity in this region. Data show that the Utique fold is built on an east-west fault, and we found evidence of activity of this fault in the past 20 kyr. A seismic section and balanced cross-section show that the slip rate is of the order of 0.38 mm.yr⁻¹. Our data show definitively the Late Pleistocene–Holocene activity of the Utique Fault; and we can predict the earthquake recurrence interval which should be of ∼10³–10⁴ yr. This high seismic risk zone deserves to be taken into account during the establishment of important regional development programs and in the application of seismic building codes.  相似文献