A spherical model for computing polarized radiation in Titan's atmosphere

The Huygens descent through Titan's atmosphere in January 2005 will provide invaluable information about Titan's atmospheric composition and aerosol properties. The Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer (DISR) will perform upward and downward looking radiation observations at various spectral ranges and spatial resolutions. To prepare the DISR data interpretation we have developed a new model for radiation transfer in Titan's atmosphere. The model solves for the full three-dimensional polarized radiation field in spherical geometry. However, the atmosphere itself is assumed to be spherically symmetric. The model is initialized with a fast-to-compute plane–parallel solution based on the doubling and adding algorithm that incorporates a spherical correction for the incoming direct solar beam. The full three-dimensional problem is then solved using the characteristics method combined with the Picard iterative approximation as described in Rozanov et al. (J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 69 (2001) 491). Aerosol scattering properties are calculated with a new microphysical model. In this formulation, aerosols are assumed to be fractal aggregates and include methane gas absorption embedded into the extinction coefficient. The resulting radiance of the model atmosphere's internal field is presented for two prescribed DISR wavelengths.     

On changes of the rotation velocities of stable,recurrent sunspots and their interpretation with a flux tube model

The angular rotation velocities of stable, recurrent sunspots were investigated using data from the Greenwich Photoheliographic Results 1940 until 1968. We found constant rotation velocities during the passages on the solar disk with errors of about ±4 m s^–1. During their lifetime these spots show a decreasing braking of their rotation velocities from 0.8 to 0.3 m s^–1 per day. A plausible interpretation is found by assuming the spots to be coupled to a slowly rising subsurface flux tube and a rotation velocity which increases with depth.Mitteilungen aus dem Kiepenheuer-Institut Nr. 201.     

Consistent estimation of geodetic parameters from SLR satellite constellation measurements

In this paper, we consistently estimate geodetic parameters such as weekly 3-D station coordinates, Earth orientation parameters (EOP) including daily x/y-pole coordinates and the excess length of day \(\Delta \hbox {LOD}\), and selected weekly Earth’s gravitational field (Stokes) coefficients up to degree and order 6 from Satellite Laser Ranging measurements to up to 11 geodetic satellites. The SLR constellation consists of LAGEOS-1/2, Etalon-1/2, Stella, Starlette, Ajisai, Larets, LARES, BLITS and WESTPAC, and its observations cover a time span of 38 years ranging from February 16, 1979, to April 30, 2017. If multiple satellites with various altitudes and orbit inclinations are combined, correlations between estimated parameters are significantly reduced. This allows us (i) to investigate the ability of satellite constellations to reduce existing correlations and (ii) to estimate reliable parameters with higher precision compared to the standard 4-satellite constellation (LAGEOS-1/2, Etalon-1/2) which is currently used by the International Laser Ranging Service for the determination of the Terrestrial Reference Frame (TRF) and EOP products. In particular, the Stokes coefficients, EOP and TRF datum parameters (three translations, three rotations, one scale factor), which are highly correlated with satellite-specific orbit parameters, are improved. From our investigations, we found for an 11-satellite solution compared to the above-mentioned 4-satellite solution a decrease in the scatter of the TRF datum parameters of up to 37%, the transformation residuals are decreased by up to 22%, the scatter of the EOP is decreased by up to 22%, and their mean values are decreased by up to 84% w.r.t. the reference solutions. The largest improvement is obtained for the Stokes coefficients which significantly benefit from a combination of multiple satellites (inclinations and orbit altitudes). In total, single coefficients are improved by up to 93% and the overall improvement is up to 74%. Moreover, it could be clearly identified that Ajisai significantly disturbs the TRF solution due to an erroneous center-of-mass correction. We further quantify the impact of specific satellites on the determination of different geodetic parameters and finally evaluate the potential of the existing SLR-tracked spherical satellite constellation to support the goals of GGOS.     

K–Ar dating of authigenic minerals in siliciclastic sequences: an example from the south Sanfranciscana Basin (Western Minas Gerais,Brazil)

K–Ar dating was applied on authigenic potassic minerals which are abundant in sandstones from the south of the Sanfranciscana Basin, Western Minas Gerais State, central Brazil. The Quintinos Member fluvial sandstones (Três Barras Formation, Areado Group) contain significant amounts of authigenic K‐feldspar as microcrystals of adularia and sanidine habits. The ages of these microcrystals cluster into three groups: 106.1 ± 2.2, 89.9 ± 1.9 and 88.8 ± 1.8 Ma (from Albian to Coniacian). The older age of 106.1 ± 2.2 Ma was obtained from the coarse fraction analysed (10–20 µm) that can contain a mixture of detrital potassic minerals (K‐feldspar, muscovite, biotite and illite) and different authigenesis of K‐feldspar (overgrowths and microcrystals). Thus, only the younger ages were interpreted as precipitation of K‐feldspar microcrystals during the Late Cretaceous into the Quintinos Member sandstones. Moreover, these ages can document the formation of microcrystals within a few million years after deposition of the sandstones. The ages of authigenic illite from the Capacete Formation epiclastic sandstones (Mata da Corda Group) range from 88.5 ± 1.9 to 71.5 ± 1.9 Ma (Coniacian–Campanian). These results suggest the timing of the illitization event in these sandstones as well as a synchrony with K‐feldspar authigenesis in the Quintinos Member sandstones. These results are well constrained and are in agreement with stratigraphic, biostratigraphic and radiometric ages previously reported for the Sanfranciscana Basin. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Morphology of the cloud tops as observed by the Venus Express Monitoring Camera

Since the discovery of ultraviolet markings on Venus, their observations have been a powerful tool to study the morphology, motions and dynamical state at the cloud top level. Here we present the results of investigation of the cloud top morphology performed by the Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) during more than 3 years of the Venus Express mission. The camera acquires images in four narrow-band filters centered at 365, 513, 965 and 1010 nm with spatial resolution from 50 km at apocentre to a few hundred of meters at pericentre. The VMC experiment provides a significant improvement in the Venus imaging as compared to the capabilities of the earlier missions. The camera discovered new cloud features like bright “lace clouds” and cloud columns at the low latitudes, dark polar oval and narrow circular and spiral “grooves” in the polar regions, different types of waves at the high latitudes. The VMC observations revealed detailed structure of the sub-solar region and the afternoon convective wake, the bow-shape features and convective cells, the mid-latitude transition region and the “polar cap”. The polar orbit of the satellite enables for the first time nadir viewing of the Southern polar regions and an opportunity to zoom in on the planet. The experiment returned numerous images of the Venus limb and documented global and local brightening events. VMC provided almost continuous monitoring of the planet with high temporal resolution that allowed one to follow changes in the cloud morphology at various scales.We present the in-flight performance of the instrument and focus in particular on the data from the ultraviolet channel, centered at the characteristic wavelength of the unknown UV absorber that yields the highest contrasts on the cloud top. Low latitudes are dominated by relatively dark clouds that have mottled and fragmented appearance clearly indicating convective activity in the sub-solar region. At ～50° latitude this pattern gives way to streaky clouds suggesting that horizontal, almost laminar, flow prevails here. Poleward from about 60°S the planet is covered by almost featureless bright polar hood sometimes crossed by dark narrow (～300 km) spiral or circular structures. This global cloud pattern can change on time scales of a few days resulting in global and local “brightening events” when the bright haze can extend far into low latitudes and/or increase its brightness by 30%. Close-up snapshots reveal plenty of morphological details like convective cells, cloud streaks, cumulus-like columns, wave trains. Different kinds of small scale waves are frequently observed at the cloud top. The wave activity is mainly observed in the 65–80° latitude band and is in particular concentrated in the region of Ishtar Terra that suggests their possible orographic origin. The VMC observations have important implications for the problems of the unknown UV absorber, microphysical processes, dynamics and radiative energy balance at the cloud tops. They are only briefly discussed in the paper, but each of them will be the subject of a dedicated study.     

The reflectivity spectrum and opposition effect of Titan's surface observed by Huygens' DISR spectrometers

We determined Titan's reflectivity spectrum near the Huygens' landing site from observations taken with the Descent Imager/Spectral Radiometer below 500 m altitude, in particular the downward-looking photometer and spectrometers. We distinguish signal coming from illumination by sunlight and the lamp onboard Huygens based on their different spectral signatures. For the sunlight data before landing, we find that spatial variations of Titan's reflectivity were only ～0.8%, aside from the phase angle dependence, indicating that the probed area within ～100 m of the landing site was very homogeneous. Only the very last spectrum taken before landing gave a 3% brighter reflectivity, which probably was caused by one bright cobble inside its footprint. The contrast of the cobble was higher at 900 nm wavelength than at 600 nm.For the data from lamp illumination, we confirm that the phase function of Titan's surface displays a strong opposition effect as found by Schröder and Keller (2009. Planetary and Space Science 57, 1963–1974). We extend the phase function to even smaller phase angles (0.02°), which are among the smallest phase angles observed in the solar system. We also confirm the reflectivity spectrum of the dark terrain near the Huygens' landing site between 900 and 1600 nm wavelength by Schröder and Keller (2008. Planetary and Space Science 56, 753–769), but extend the spectrum down to 435 nm wavelength. The reflectivity at zero phase angle peaks at 0.45±0.06 around 750 nm wavelength and drops down to roughly 0.2 at both spectral ends. Our reflectivity of 0.45 is much higher than all previously reported values because our observations probe lower phase angles than others. The spectrum is very smooth except for a known absorption feature longward of 1350 nm. We did not detect any significant variation of the spectral shape along the slit for exposures after landing, probing a 25×4 cm² area. However, the recorded spectral shape was slightly different for exposures before and after landing. This difference is similar to the spectral differences seen on scales of kilometers (Keller et al., 2008. Planetary and Space Science 56, 728–752), indicating that most observations may probe spatially variable contributions from two basic materials, such as a dark soil partially covered by bright cobbles.We used the methane absorption features to constrain the methane mixing ratio near the surface to 5.0±0.3%, in agreement with the 4.92±0.24% value measured in situ by Niemann et al. (2005. Nature 438, 779–784), but smaller than their revised value of 5.65±0.18% (Niemann et al., 2010. Journal of Geophysical Research 115, E12006). Our results were made possible by an in depth review of the calibration of the spectroscopic and photometric data.