Icarus (September 2005)
The index for the September issue of Icarus is now online. Icarus is the journal for the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Science. A number of outer satellite papers are in this issue:
- Thermal response of Iapetus to an eclipse by Saturn's rings by G. Neugebauer, K. Matthews, P.D. Nicholson, B.T. Soifer, I. Gatley and S.V.W. Beckwith
- The Zamama–Thor region of Io: Insights from a synthesis of mapping, topography, and Galileo spacecraft data by David A. Williams, Laszlo P. Keszthelyi, Paul M. Schenk, Moses P. Milazzo, Rosaly M.C. Lopes, Julie A. Rathbun and Ronald Greeley
- Maps of Titan's surface from 1 to 2.5 μm by Athena Coustenis, Mathieu Hirtzig, Eric Gendron, Pierre Drossart, Olivier Lai, Michel Combes and Alberto Negrão
- Photochemical processes on Titan: Irradiation of mixtures of gases that simulate Titan's atmosphere by Buu N. Tran, Jeffrey C. Joseph, Michael Force, Robert G. Briggs, Veronique Vuitton and James P. Ferris
- Condensed species in Titan's atmosphere: Identification of crystalline propionitrile (C2H5CN, CH3CH2C
N) based on laboratory infrared data by R.K. Khanna
posted by Jason Perry at 11:47 AM
2 Comments:
The Neugebauer et al. abstract on Iapetus' thermal inertia is 'curious', because it implies very small grain size...in contrast to the "hard packed' dry ice and water caps on Mars.
At less than 10 Jm^-2K^-1s^-1/2, the measured termal inertial on Iapetus is much less than the nominal minimal inertial capacity of Mars in the polar regions (25Jm^-2K^-1s^-1/2)in the south, ~400 Jm^-2K^-1 s^-1/2 in the northern regions).
source:http://lasp.colorado.edu/inertia/2001/
http://lasp.colorado.edu/inertia/nmap2003.jpg
Perhaps a fine powder, but what kind of powder?
It would seem that the dark material on Iapetus appears to be powdery (or fluffy as the CIRS team called it).
The result isn't "new", as the CIRS team reported a very low thermal inertia back in January:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07006
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