Outer planet magnetospheres: a tutorial

Cometary magnetospheres: a tutorial

The nucleus of an active comet, such as comet Halley near its perihelion, produces large quantities of gas and dust. The resulting cometary atmosphere, or coma, extends more than a million kilometers into space, where it interacts with the solar wind. An ‘‘induced’’ cometary magnetosphere is a consequence of this interaction. Cometary ion pick-up and mass loading of the solar wind starts to tak...

Technologies for Outer Planet Missions: A Companion to the Outer Planet Assessment Group (OPAG) Strategic Exploration White Paper

Tectonics of the outer planet satellites

Tectonic features on the satellites of the outer planets range from the familiar, such as clearly recognizable graben on many satellites, to the bizarre, such as the ubiquitous double ridges on Europa, the twisting sets of ridges on Triton, or the isolated giant mountains rising from Io’s surface. All of the large and middle-sized outer planet satellites except Io are dominated by water ice nea...

Planet Formation in the Outer Solar System

This paper reviews coagulation models for planet formation in the Kuiper belt, emphasizing links to recent observations of our and other solar systems. At heliocentric distances of 35–50 AU, single-annulus and multiannulus planetesimal accretion calculations produce several 1000 km or larger planets and many 50–500 km objects on timescales of 10–30 Myr in a minimum-mass solar nebula. Planets fo...

Medical nanobiosensors: A tutorial review

A sensitive monitoring of biological analytes, such as biomolecules (protein, lipid, DNA and RNA), and biological cells (blood cell, virus and bacteria), is essential to assess and avoid risks for human health. Nanobiosensors, analytical devices that combine a biologically sensitive element with a nanostructured transducer, are being widely used for molecular detection of biomarkers associated ...