Identification of mercurian volcanism: Resolution effects and implications for MESSENGER     

S. M. MILKOVICH  J. W. HEAD  L. WILSON 《Meteoritics & planetary science》2002,37(9):1209-1222

Abstract— The possibility of volcanism on Mercury has been a topic of discussion since Mariner 10 returned images of half the planet's surface showing widespread plains material. These plains could be volcanic or lobate crater ejecta. An assessment of the mechanics of the ascent and eruption of magma shows that it is possible to have widespread volcanism, no volcanism on the surface whatsoever, or some range in between. It is difficult to distinguish between a lava flow and lobate crater ejecta based on morphology and morphometry. No definite volcanic features have been identified on Mercury. However, known lunar volcanic features cannot be identified in images with similar resolutions and viewing geometries as the Mariner 10 dataset. Examination of high‐resolution, low Sun angle Mariner 10 images reveals several features which are interpreted to be flow fronts; it is unclear if these are volcanic flows or ejecta flows. This analysis implies that a clear assessment of volcanism on Mercury must wait for better data. MESSENGER (MErcury: Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, Ranging) will take images with viewing geometries and resolutions appropriate for the identification of such features.  相似文献   

The mass ratio of Charon to Pluto from Hubble Space Telescope astrometry with the fine guidance sensors     

C.B Olkin  L.H Wasserman  O.G Franz 《Icarus》2003,164(1):254-259

The mass ratio of Charon to Pluto is a basic parameter describing the binary system and is necessary for determining the individual masses and densities of these two bodies. Previous measurements of the mass ratio have been made, but the solutions differ significantly (Null et al., 1993; Young et al., 1994; Null and Owen, 1996; Foust et al., 1997; Tholen and Buie, 1997). We present the first observations of Pluto and Charon with a well-calibrated astrometric instrument—the fine guidance sensors on the Hubble Space Telescope. We observed the motion of Pluto and Charon about the system barycenter over 4.4 days (69% of an orbital period) and determined the mass ratio to be 0.122±0.008 which implies a density of 1.8 to 2.1 g cm⁻³ for Pluto and 1.6 to 1.8 g cm⁻³ for Charon. The resulting rock-mass fractions for Pluto and Charon are higher than expected for bodies formed in the outer solar nebula, possibly indicating significant postaccretion loss of volatiles.  相似文献   

Anisotropies in the redshift-space correlations of galaxy groups and clusters – I. Simulated catalogues     

N. D. Padilla  D. G. Lambas † 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,342(2):519-531

  相似文献   

The emission distribution in RR Pictoris     

L. Schmidtobreick  C. Tappert  I. Saviane 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,342(1):145-150

  相似文献   

Spectroscopic studies of three novae     

V. P. Arkhipova  M. A. Burlak  V. F. Esipov 《Astronomy Letters》2002,28(2):100-114

We present our spectroscopic observations of the novae V1425, V1493, and V1494 Aql carried out with the 125-cm telescope at the Crimean Station of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in the wavelength range 4000–11000 Å. We measured the emission-line intensities, determined the nova shell expansion velocities from the line profile FWHMs and components, and estimated the interstellar reddening from the first members of the Balmer series. The chemical composition of the nova shells is analyzed. Nitrogen and oxygen were found to be overabundant in V1425 and V1494 Aql; the helium abundance turned out to be normal in the two stars.  相似文献   

Pulsar magnetic field for an infinitely conductive accretion disk     

N. R. Sibgatullin  T. A. Doroshenko 《Astronomy Letters》2002,28(11):769-772

The magnetic-field distribution outside a flat, infinitely conductive unbounded disk in the field of a point magnetic dipole is determined. A relationship is established between the problem of magnetic-field determination and the problem of the flow of an ideal incompressible fluid around an infinitely thin disk.  相似文献   

Gamma-Hadron Separation using Čerenkov Photon Density Fluctuations     

V. R. Chitnis  P. N. Bhat 《Experimental Astronomy》2002,13(2):77-100

In the atmospheric Čerenkov technique γ-rays are detected against the abundant background produced by hadronic showers. In order to improve the signal to noise ratio of theexperiment, it is necessary to reject a significant fraction of hadronic showers. Traditional background rejection methods based on image shape parameters have been extensively used for the data from imaging telescopes. However, non-imaging Čerenkov telescopes have to develop very different means of statistically identifying and removing cosmic ray events. Some of the parameters, which could be potentially important for non-imaging arrays, are the temporal and spectral differences, the lateral distributions and density fluctuations of Čerenkov photons generated by γ-ray and hadron primaries. Here we study the differences in fluctuations of Čerenkov photon density in the light pool at the observation level from showers initiated by photons and those initiated by protons or heavier nuclei. The database of simulated events for the PACT array has been used to evaluate the efficiency of the new technique. Various types of density fluctuations like the short range and medium range fluctuations as well as flatness parameter are studied. The estimated quality factors reflect the efficiencies with which the hadrons can be rejected from the data. Since some of these parameters are independent, the cuts may be applied in tandem and we demonstrate that the proton rejection efficiency of ∼90% can be achieved. Use of density fluctuations is particularly suited for wavefront sampling observations and it seems to be a good technique to improve the signal to noise ratio. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.  相似文献   

Ghosts of the Milky Way: a search for topology in new quasar catalogues     

S. J. Weatherley  S. J. Warren  S. M. Croom  R. J. Smith  B. J. Boyle  T. Shanks  L. Miller  M. P. Baltovic 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,342(1):L9-L13

  相似文献   

SN 1999E: another piece in the supernova–gamma-ray burst connection puzzle     

L. Rigon  M. Turatto  S. Benetti  A. Pastorello  E. Cappellaro  I. Aretxaga  O. Vega  V. Chavushyan  F. Patat  I. J. Danziger  M. Salvo 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,340(1):191-196

  相似文献   

Double–double radio galaxies: remnants of merged supermassive binary black holes     

F. K. Liu  Xue-Bing Wu  S. L. Cao 《Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society》2003,340(2):411-416

  相似文献