Detectability of exomoons by examining the signals from a model of transiting exoplanets with moons

Exomoons are natural satellites of exoplanets. Nowadays, none has been confirmed. However, a number of detection techniques have been proposed, including Transit Timing Variations (TTV) and Transit Duration Variations (TDV) techniques. From a recent study, fitting observed transit with the traditional photocentric fitting model shows unique features around the primary and secondary exomoon transits in TDV and transit depth signals, which might reduce the detectability. The aim of this work is to retrieve the variation of TTV, TDV and transit depth signals of exomoon systems with the photocentric fitting model. One year star-planet-moon transit light curves are simulated with LUNA algorithm and fit with TransitFit. The results show that neglecting the TDV and transit depth data with phase around exomoon’s primary and secondary transits improve the exomoon detectability by a factor of ten and the systems with large moon orbital semi-major axis with nearly edge-on orbit around low mass stars can be detected.

A Grain-Scale Study of Mojave Mars Simulant (MMS-1)

Space exploration has attracted significant interest by government agencies and the scientific community in recent years in an attempt to explore possible scenarios of settling of facilities on the Moon and Mars surface. One of the important components in space exploration is related with the understanding of the geophysical and geotechnical characteristics of the surfaces of planets and their natural satellites and because of the limitation of available extra-terrestrial samples, many times researchers develop simulants, which mimic the properties and characteristics of the original materials. In the present study, characterization at the grain-scale was performed on the Mojave Mars Simulant (MMS-1) with emphasis on the frictional behavior of small size samples which follow the particle-to-particle configuration. Additional characterization was performed by means of surface composition and morphology analysis and the crushing behavior of individual grains. The results from the study present for the first time the micromechanical tribological response of Mars simulant, and attempts were also made to compare the behavior of this simulant with previously published results on other types of Earth and extra-terrestrial materials. Despite some similarities between Mars and Moon simulants, the unique characteristics of the MMS-1 samples resulted in significant differences and particularly in severe damage of the grain surfaces, which was also linked to the dilation behavior at the grain-scale.

The ominous fate of exomoons around hot Jupiters in the high-eccentricity migration scenario

ABSTRACT All the giant planets in the Solar system host a large number of natural satellites. Moons in extrasolar systems are difficult to detect, but a Neptune-sized exomoon candidate has been recently found around a Jupiter-sized planet in the Kepler-1625b system. Due to their relative ease of detection, hot Jupiters (HJs), which reside in close orbits around their host stars with a period of a few days, may be very good candidates to search for exomoons. It is still unknown whether the HJ population can host (or may have hosted) exomoons. One suggested formation channel for HJs is high-eccentricity migration induced by a stellar binary companion combined with tidal dissipation. Here, we investigate under which circumstances an exomoon can prevent or allow high-eccentricity migration of a HJ, and in the latter case, if the exomoon can survive the migration process. We use both semi-analytic arguments, as well as direct N-body simulations including tidal interactions. Our results show that massive exomoons are efficient at preventing high-eccentricity migration. If an exomoon does instead allow for planetary migration, it is unlikely that the HJ formed can host exomoons since the moon will either spiral on to the planet or escape from it during the migration process. A few escaped exomoons can become stable planets after the Jupiter has migrated, or by tidally migrating themselves. The majority of the exomoons end up being ejected from the system or colliding with the primary star and the host planet. Such collisions might none the less leave observable features, such as a debris disc around the primary star or exorings around the close-in giant.

DYNAMICS AROUND AN ASTEROID MODELED AS A MASS TRIPOLE

The orbital dynamics of a spacecraft orbiting around irregular small celestial bodies is a challenging problem. Diffculties to model the gravity field of these bodies arise from the poor knowledge of the exact shape as observed from the Earth. In order to understand the complex dynamical environment in the vicinity of irregular asteroids, several studies have been conducted using simplified models. In this work, we investigate the qualitative dynamics in the vicinity of an asteroid with an arched shape using a tripole model based on the existence of three mass points linked to each other by rods with given lengths and negligible masses. We applied our results to some real systems, namely, asteroids 8567, 243 Ida and 433 Eros and also Phobos, one of the natural satellites of Mars.

The Formation of the Martian Moons

The origin of the natural satellites or moons of the solar system is as challenging to unravel as the formation of the planets. Before the start of the space probe exploration era, this topic of planetary science was restricted to telescopic observations, which limited the possibility of testing different formation scenarios. This era has considerably boosted this topic of research, particularly after the Apollo missions returned samples from the Moon’s surface to Earth. Observations from subsequent deep space missions such as Viking 1 and 2 Orbiters, Voyager 1 and 2, Phobos-2, Galileo, Cassini-Huygens, and the most recent Mars orbiters such as Mars Express, as well as from the Hubble space telescope, have served to intensify research in this area. Each moon system has its own specificities, with different origins and histories. It is widely accepted that the Earth’s Moon formed after a giant collision between the proto-Earth and a body similar in size to Mars. The Galilean moons of Jupiter, on the other hand, appear to have formed by accretion in a circum-Jovian disk, while smaller, irregularly shaped satellites were probably captured by the giant planet. The small and medium-sized Saturnian moons may have formed from the rings encircling the planet. Among the terrestrial planets, Mercury and Venus have no moons, the Earth has a single large moon, and Mars has two very small satellites. This raises some challenging questions: What processes can lead to moon formation around terrestrial planets and what parameters determine the possible outcomes, such as the number and size of moons? The answer to such fundamental questions necessarily entails a thorough understanding of the formation of the Martian system and may have relevance to the possible existence of (exo)moons orbiting exoplanets. The formation of such exomoons is of great importance as they could influence conditions for habitability or for maintaining life over long periods of time on the surface of Earth-like exoplanets, for example by limiting the variations of the orientation of the planet’s rotation axis and thus preventing frequent changes of its climate. Our current knowledge concerning the origin of Phobos and Deimos has been acquired from observational data as well as theoretical work. Early observations led to the idea that the two satellites were captured asteroids but this created difficulties in reconciling the current orbits of Phobos and Deimos with those of captured bodies, hence suggesting the need for an alternative theory. A giant-impact scenario provides a description of how moons similar to Phobos and Deimos can be formed in orbits similar to those observed today. This scenario also restricts the range of possible composition of the two moons, providing a motivation for future missions that aim for the first time to bring material from the Martian system back to Earth.

Analytical representation for ephemeride with short time spans

Context. The ephemerides of natural satellites resulting from numerical integration have a very good precision on the fitting to recent observations, in a limited interval. Meanwhile, synthetic ephemerides like the Théorie Analytique des Satellites de Saturne (TASS) by Vienne and Duriez describe in detail the dynamical system by a representation based on the combinations of the proper frequencies. Some theoretical studies need to have both advantages. For example, to study the rotation of Titan, one needs to know the representation of its longitude. Aims. We aim to use these two types of ephemerides in order to rebuild a long-lasting and high-precision ephemeris with proper frequencies based on the numerical integration ephemeris. The aim is to describe the numerical ephemerides with formulas similar to analytical ones. Methods. We used the representation of the orbital elements from the TASS ephemeris analysed over 10 000 years as a reference template. We obtained the proper frequencies with both numerical and the TASS ephemeris over 1000 years only. A least-square procedure allowed us to get the analytical representation of an orbital element in this limited interval. Results. We acquire the representation of the mean longitude of Titan from JPL ephemeris over 1000 years. For almost all components, the corresponding amplitudes and phases are similar to the relative terms from TASS. The biggest difference between our representation and the mean longitude of Titan of JPL is less than 100 km over 1000 years, and the standard deviation is about 26 km.