Radiocarbon on Titan

Abstract— We explore the likely production and fate of ¹⁴C in the thick nitrogen atmosphere of Saturn's moon Titan and investigate the constraints that measurements of ¹⁴C might place on Titan's photochemical, atmospheric transport and surface‐atmosphere interaction processes. Titan's atmosphere is thick enough that cosmic‐ray flux limits the production of ¹⁴C: absence of a strong magnetic field and the increased distance from the Sun suggest production rates of ?9 atom/cm²/s, ?4x higher than Earth. The fate and detectability of ¹⁴C depends on the chemical species into which it is incorporated: as methane it would be hopelessly diluted even in only the atmosphere. However, in the more likely case that the ¹⁴C attaches to the haze that rains out onto the surface (as tholin, HCN or acetylene and their polymers), haze in the atmosphere or recently deposited on the surface would be quite radioactive. Such radioactivity may lead to a significant enhancement in the electrical conductivity of the atmosphere which will be measured by the Huygens probe. Measurements with simple detectors on future missions could place useful constraints on the mass deposition rates of photochemical material on the surface and identify locations where surface deposits of such material are “freshest”.     

The height,spectrum and mechanism of type-B red aurora and its bearing on the excitation of O(1S) in aurora

The height of the lower red border of type-B aurora has been determined by triangulation using TV cameras at two ground stations. A mean height of 91.4 ± 1.1 km was determined from a set of 12 measurements made under ideal conditions. A TV spectrograph was used simultaneously to seek possible spectral changes between 6400 and 6900 Å which would be indicative of changes in the vibrational distribution in the N₂ First Positive bands. No significant difference was found in this distribution between the spectra from 93 and 122 km. The height distribution of contributions to the OI 5577 Å emission relative to the N⁺₂ First Negative emission was modelled from 80 to 160 km. Contributions from electron impact on atomic O, O⁺₂ dissociative recombination and N₂(A)O energy transfer were included. Account was taken of recent laboratory data on O(¹S) quenching. It was concluded that these processes could explain the excitation of O(¹S) in normal aurora and the height distribution of OI 5577 Å in type-B red aurora. It was confirmed that the lifetime ofO(¹S) in type-B red auroral rapid time variations is about 0.5 s and it was found from the model that the observed time variation can be reproduced by the mechanisms considered, provided the concentration of NO in the auroral atmosphere is about 1 × 10⁹ at 95 km. Before reasonable certainty can be attained in the correctness of the interpretation it will however be necessary to have reliable simultaneous observations of neutral atmospheric composition particularly for O and NO as well as unchallengeable measurements of the yields of O(¹S) for the processes considered and for several other processes which have been suggested recently.     

The New Multichannel Radiospectrograph ARTEMIS-IV/HECATE, of the University of Athens

We present the new solar radiospectrograph of the University of Athensoperating at the Thermopylae Station since 1996. Observations cover thefrequency range from 110 to 688 MHz. The radiospectrograph has a 7-meterparabolic antenna and two receivers operating in parallel. One is a sweepfrequency receiver and the other a multichannel acousto-optical receiver.The data acquisition system consists of a front-end VME based subsystem anda Sun Sparc-5 workstation connected through Ethernet. The two subsystems areoperated using the VxWorks real-time package. The daily operation is fullyautomated: pointing of the antenna to the sun, starting and stopping theobservations at pre-set times, data acquisition, data compression by`silence suppression', and archiving on DAT tapes. The instrument can beused either by itself to study the onset and evolution of solar radio bursts or in conjunction with other instruments including theNançay Decametric Array and the WIND/WAVES RAD1 and RAD2 low frequencyreceivers to study associated interplanetary phenomena.     

The Expansion of the Hamiltonian of the Planetary Problem into the Poisson Series in All Keplerian Elements (Theory)

The study of the evolution of planetary systems, primarily of the Solar System, is one of the basic problems of celestial mechanics. The stability of motion of giant planets on cosmogonic time scales was established by numerical and analytical methods, but the question about the evolution of orbits of terrestrial planets and arbitrary solar-type planetary systems remained open. This work initiates a series of papers allowing one to advance in solving the problem of the evolution of the solar-type planetary systems on cosmogonic time scales by using powerful analytical tools. In the first paper of this series, we choose the optimum reference system and obtain the Poisson series expansion of the Hamiltonian of the problem in all Keplerian elements. We propose to use the integral representation of the corresponding coefficients or the Poisson processor means instead of conventionally addressing any possible special functions. This approach extremely simplifies the algorithm. The next paper of this series deals with the calculation of the expansion coefficients.     

Cokriging nonstationary data

Universal cokriging is used to obtain predictions when dealing with multivariate random functions. An important type of nonstationarity is defined in terms of multivariate random functions with increments which are stationary of orderk. The covariance between increments of different variables is modeled by means of the pseudo-cross-covariance function. Criteria are formulated to which the parameters of pseudo-cross-covariance functions must comply so as to ensure positive-definiteness. Cokriging equations and the induced cokriging equations are given. The study is illustrated by an example from soil science.     

A 59-second period in the very high energy gamma-ray emission from the Geminga pulsar

An analysis of our observations of the Geminga object with the GT-48 ground-based gamma-ray telescope has shown that its very-high-energy gamma-ray flux is modulated with a 59-s period. The 59-s period and its time derivative previously inferred from satellite data have been confirmed. According to our data, the period was 61.94 s in 1997 at MSD=50573. The statistical significance of this result is (1?4.5)×10^?4.     

Pulsar reflections within the Crab Nebula

Between 1997 August and October, the radio pulses from the Crab pulsar were followed by discrete moving echoes, which appear to be reflections from part of an ionized shell in the outer part of the Crab Nebula, crossing the line of sight to pulsar. Similar events have now been recognized in recordings from the past 30 yr, and it seems that the Nebula must contain a large number of ionized shell-like surfaces on a much finer scale than recognized hitherto.     

The Effect of Atmospheric Drag on Satellite Orbits During the Bastille Day Event

Geomagnetic storms driven by solar eruptions are known to have significant effects on the total density of the upper atmosphere in the altitude range 250–1000 km. This in turn causes a measurable effect on the orbits of resident space objects in this altitude range. We analyzed a sample of these orbits, both from sensor data and from orbital element sets, during the period surrounding the 14 July 2000 solar activity. We present information concerning the effects of this event on the orbits of resident space objects and how well accepted atmospheric models were able to represent it. As part of this analysis, we describe a technique for extracting atmospheric density information from orbital element sets. On daily time scales, the effect of geomagnetic activity appears to be more important than that of prompt radiation. However, the limitations in time and amplitude quantization of the accepted solar indices are evident. A limited comparison is also made with previous solar storm events.     

On the mathematical description of fine structure under the conditions of weak variability

The idea of the weak variability of the fields is introduced, which means that when they are recorded by some measuring instrument (MI), the output signal obtains increments of the order of one/several quanta of sensitivity at the discreteness interval. At small scales (microstructure), this field is described in terms of random discrete values which reflect the properties of both the field measured and the MI. Theoretical relationships which define the probabilities of increments at the compound intervals in terms of the probabilities of increments at the sampling intervals, are derived for the case of independent random increments at the sampling intervals of discreteness. The validity of this model is illustrated by respective computations using data of microstructure measurements of the temperature profile in the main thermocline in the Sargasso Sea.Translated by Mikhail M. Trufanov.