Persephone: A Pluto-system Orbiter and Kuiper Belt Explorer
The Planetary Science Journal American Astronomical Society 2:2 (2021) 75
Constraining the surface properties of Helene
Icarus Elsevier 360 (2021) 114366
Abstract:
We analyze two sets of observations of Dione's co-orbital satellite Helene taken by Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS). The first observation was a CIRS FP3 (600 to 1100 cm−1, 9.1 to 16.7 μm) stare of Helene's trailing hemisphere, where two of the ten FP3 pixels were filled. The daytime surface temperatures derived from these observations were 83.3 ± 0.9 K and 88.8 ± 0.8 K at local times 223° to 288° and 180° to 238° respectively. When these temperatures were compared to a 1-D thermophysical model only albedos between 0.25 and 0.70 were able to fit the data, with a mean and standard deviation of 0.43 ± 0.12. All thermal inertias tested between 1 and 2000 J m−2 K−1 s-1/2 could fit the data (i.e. thermal inertia was not constrained). The second observation analyzed was a FP3 and FP4 (1100 to 1400 cm−1, 7.1 to 9.1 μm) scan of Helene's leading hemisphere. Temperatures between 77 and 89 K were observed with FP3, with a typical error between 5 and 10 K. The surface temperatures derived from FP4 were higher, between 98 and 106 K, but with much larger errors (between 10 and 30 K) and thus the FP3- and FP4-derived temperature largely agree within their uncertainty. Dione's disk-integrated bolometric Bond albedos have been found to be between 0.63 ± 0.15 (Howett et al. 2010) and 0.44 ± 0.13 (Howett et al. 2014). Thus Helene may be darker than Dione, which is the opposite of the trend found at shorter wavelengths (c.f. Hedman et al. 2020; Royer et al., 2021). However few conclusions can be drawn since the albedos of Dione and Helene agree within their uncertainty.Bolometric bond albedo and thermal inertia maps of Mimas
Icarus Elsevier 348 (2020) 113745
Abstract:
In 2011 a thermally anomalous region was discovered on Mimas, Saturn's innermost major icy satellite (Howett et al., 2011). The anomalous region is a lens-like shape located at low latitudes on Mimas' leading hemisphere. It manifests as a region with warmer nighttime temperatures, and cooler daytime ones than its surroundings. The thermally anomalous region is spatially correlated with a darkening in Mimas' IR/UV surface color (Schenk et al., 2011) and the region preferentially bombarded by high-energy electrons (Paranicas et al., 2012, Paranicas et al., 2014; Nordheim et al., 2017). We use data from Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) to map Mimas' surface temperatures and its thermophysical properties. This provides a dramatic improvement on the work in Howett et al. (2011), where the values were determined at only two regions on Mimas (one inside, and another outside of the anomalous region). We use all spatially-resolved scans made by CIRS' focal plane 3 (FP3, 600 to 1100 cm−1) of Mimas' surface, which are largely daytime observations but do include one nighttime one. The resulting temperature maps confirm the presence and location of Mimas' previously discovered thermally anomalous region. No other thermally anomalous regions were discovered, although we note that the surface coverage is incomplete on Mimas' leading and anti-Saturn hemisphere. The thermal inertia map confirms that the anomalous region has a notably higher thermal inertia than its surroundings: 98 ± 42 J m−2 K−1 s-1/2 inside of the anomaly, compared to 34 ± 32 J m−2 K−1 s-1/2 outside. The albedo inside and outside of the anomalous region agrees within their uncertainty: 0.45 ± 0.08 inside compared to 0.41 ± 0.07 outside the anomaly. Interestingly the albedo appears brighter inside the anomaly region, which may not be surprising given this region does appear brighter at some UV wavelengths (0.338 μm, see Schenk et al., 2011). However, this result should be treated with caution because, as previously stated, statistically the albedo of these two regions is the same when their uncertainties are considered. These thermal inertia and albedo values determined here are consistent with those found by Howett et al. (2011), who determined the thermal inertia inside the anomaly to be 66 ± 23 J m−2 K−1 s-1/2 and <16 J m−2 K−1 s-1/2 outside, with albedos that varied from 0.49 to 0.70.Disk-resolved Photometric Properties of Pluto and the Coloring Materials across its Surface
The Astronomical Journal American Astronomical Society 159:2 (2020) 74
Color, composition, and thermal environment of Kuiper Belt object (486958) Arrokoth.
Science (New York, N.Y.) 367:6481 (2020) eaay3705