Recent Noteworthy Papers from Division Scientists

Cover Stories

Text Box: An image of microbial mats taken by division scientist Lee Bebout from their Baja Mexico Field site is the cover shot for the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology in association with the article 'Unexpected Diversity and Complexity of the Guerrero Negro Hypersaline Microbial Mat' co-authored by division scientist Brad M. Bebout. For more information see http://aem.asm.org/cgi/content/short/72/5/3685 and http://aem.asm.org/content/vol72/issue5/cover.shtml

 

Text Box: Two new moons, named Mab and Cupid, and two new outer rings have been discovered around Uranus by former division scientist Showalter and division scientist Lissauer (p. 973, published online 22 December 2005; see the cover and the Perspective by Murray). These new members of the uranian system were spotted in images from the Hubble Space Telescope and traced in earlier pictures from Voyager 2. Substantial changes are seen in the passages of the moons and brightness of the rings since the Voyager 2 fly-by. Many of Uranus' moons do not follow simple keplerian orbits but exhibit complex dynamics, which suggest that the whole system is gravitationally unstable or chaotic.

 

 

 

Other recent noteworthy papers:

 

Text Box: Chondrule formation in particle-rich nebular regions at least hundreds of kilometres across by Jeffrey N. Cuzzi and Conel M. O'D. Alexander.

Chondrules are the dominant, enigmatic components of primitive meteorites and probably of most primitive asteroids; they were melted in the protoplanetary nebula and have thus lost some of their more volatile elements (Mg, Si). Research by Space Science Division Scientist Jeff Cuzzi and collaborator Conel Alexander (DTM, Carnegie Institution) suggests an explanation for a puzzling lack of the expected preferential loss of light isotopes of these elements from chondrules. The new model shows that if chondrule formation regions have a certain chondrule density (roughly 10 per cubic meter) and size (roughly 100-1000km), evaporating vapor clouds from each chondrule overlap, replacing the lost light isotopes. The results seem to preclude some candidate chondrule formation mechanisms such as nebula lightning and bow shocks from numerous small planetesimals, which act on smaller scales. The work appeared in the May 25 issue of Nature. Click here to be taken to the online version of the article at nature.com and see the News and Views piece by Steve Desch.

 

Bernstein, M. P.; Cruikshank, D. P.; Sandford, S. A. (2006) Near-infrared laboratory spectra of CH4 in Solid H2O. Icarus Volume 181, Issue 1, March 2006, Pages 302-30 Available online.

 

Manning, Curtis V.; McKay, Christopher P.; Zahnle, Kevin J. (2006) Thick and thin models of the evolution of carbon dioxide on Mars. Icarus, Volume 180, Issue 1, p. 38-59. Available online.

 

Brown, Robert H.; Clark, Roger N.; Buratti, Bonnie J.; Cruikshank, Dale P.; Barnes, Jason W.; Mastrapa, Rachel M. E.; Bauer, J.; Newman, S.; Momary, T.; Baines, K. H.; and 15 coauthors (2006) Composition and Physical Properties of Enceladus' Surface Science, Volume 311, Issue 5766, pp. 1425-1428. Available online.

 

 

 

 

 

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