Other
Scientific paper
Sep 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.1606h&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #16.06
Other
Scientific paper
Uranus and Neptune are composed mostly of ices, such as H2O, making them fundamentally different from Jupiter or Saturn. These ice giants, and their unique satellites and rings, have an important story to tell us about the formation, evolution, and structure of planets in our Solar System and beyond. To understand that story, we must learn the basic properties of their interiors. We do not know if they have extensive solid- or liquid-water layers (making them almost overgrown icy satellites) or if the H2O-H2 phase diagram allows structures unlike any other planet in our solar system. How internal heat is transported through the interior and atmosphere is also important to learn. We wish to know the nature of atmospheric convection and circulation and how they relate to internal and solar forcing. We also wish to know the composition and temperature of the atmosphere as a function of latitude, altitude, and time. One of the great surprises of the Voyager encounters was the discovery of strongly tilted dipole magnetic fields, offset from the planet's centers. How and where is the field generated? How does its unique geometry affect the transfer of energy from the solar wind to the magnetosphere? A mission to Uranus or Neptune, supported by healthy ground-based observing and laboratory campaigns, should be a priority for the next decade. Either planet can serve as the archetypal ice giant, but cross-disciplinary priorities can be used to choose one over the other. A recent JPL study identified trajectories that could deliver significant science payloads into orbit around either planet, and found that it may be possible to do so at Uranus for under the New Frontiers cost cap and using solar-power. This research was carried out at JPL/Caltech under contract with NASA.
Brooks Shimon
Fletcher Lauren
Friedson A.
Hofstadter Mark David
Moeller Ralf
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