Engineering topics

Hahn, Joseph M.

Publications and source records attributed to Hahn, Joseph M..

10 records

NASA NTRS2015

Impact Vaporization as a Possible Source of Mercury's Calcium Exosphere

Mercury's calcium exosphere varies in a periodic way with that planet's true anomaly. We show that this pattern can be explained by impact vaporization from interplanetary dust with variations being due to Mercury's radial and vertical excursions through an interplanetary dust disk having an inclination within 5 degrees of the plane of Mercury's orbit. Both a highly inclined dust disk and a two-disk model (where the two disks have a mutual inclination) fail to reproduce the observed variation in calcium exospheric abundance with Mercury true anomaly angle. However, an additional source of impacting dust beyond the nominal dust disk is required near Mercury's true anomaly (ν) 25deg +/-5deg. This is close to but not coincident with Mercury's true anomaly (ν=45deg) when it crosses comet 2P/Encke's present day orbital plane. Interestingly, the Taurid meteor storms at Earth, which are also due to Comet Encke, are observed to occur when Earth's true anomaly is +/-20 or so degrees before and after the position where Earth and Encke orbital planes cross. The lack of exact correspondence with the present day orbit of Encke may indicate the width of the potential stream along Mercury's orbit or a previous cometary orbit. The extreme energy of the escaping calcium, estimated to have a temperature greater than 50000 K if the source is thermal, cannot be due to the impact process itself but must be imparted by an additional mechanism such as dissociation of a calcium-bearing molecule or ionization followed by recombination.

Dust↗

NASA NTRS2002

Clementine Observations of the Zodiacal Light and the Dust Content of the Inner Solar System

Using the Moon to occult the Sun, the Clementine spacecraft used its navigation cameras to map the inner zodiacal light at optical wavelengths over elongations of 3 approx. less than epsilon approx. less than 30 deg from the Sun. This surface brightness map is then used to infer the spatial distribution of interplanetary dust over heliocentric distances of about 10 solar radii to the orbit of Venus. The averaged ecliptic surface brightness of the zodiacal light falls off as Z(epsilon) is a member of epsilon(sup -2.45 +/- 0.05), which suggests that the dust cross-sectional density nominally falls off as sigma(r) is a member of r(sup - 1.45 +/- 0.05). The interplanetary dust also has an albedo of alpha approx. = 0.1 that is uncertain by a factor of approx. 2. Asymmetries of approx. 10% are seen in directions east-west and north-south of the Sun, and these may be due the giant planets' secular gravitational perturbations. We apply a simple model that attributes the zodiacal light as due to three dust populations having distinct inclination distributions, namely, dust from asteroids and Jupiter-family comets (JFCs) having characteristic inclinations of i approx. 7 deg, dust from Halley-type comets having i approx. 33 deg, and an isotropic cloud of dust from Oort Cloud comets. The best-fitting scenario indicates that asteroids + JFCs are the source of about 45% of the optical dust cross section seen in the ecliptic at 1 AU but that at least 89% of the dust cross section enclosed by a 1-AU-radius sphere is of a cometary origin. Each population's radial density variations can also deviate somewhat from the nominal sigma(r) is a member of r(sup -1.45). When these results are extrapolated out to the asteroid belt, we find an upper limit on the mass of the light-reflecting asteroidal dust that is equivalent to a 12-km asteroid, and a similar extrapolation of the isotropic dust cloud out to Oort Cloud distances yields a mass equivalent to a 30-km comet, although the latter mass is uncertain by orders of magnitude.

Hahn, Joseph M.↗

NASA NTRS2000

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 Dust Size and Velocity Distributions

Pre-impact observations of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (S-L9) obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope are examined, and a model of an active, dust-producing comet is fitted to images of fragments G, H, K, and L. The model assumes steady isotropic dust emission from each fragment's sunlit hemisphere. Best-fit results indicate that the dominant light-scatterers in these fragments' comae were relatively large dust grains of radii 10 micrometers < R < 3 mm. The fragments' dust size distributions were rather flat in comparison to other comets, dN(R) proportional to R(sup -2.3 +/- 0.1), and the dust ejection speeds were approximately 0.5-1.5 m/s. The S-L9 fragments themselves were not detected directly, and upper limits on their radii are 1.0-1.5 km assuming an albedo a = 0.04. However, these fragments' vigorous production of dust, which ranges from 6 to 22 kg/s, places a lower limit of approximately 100 m on their radii at the moment of tidal breakup. Any fragments smaller than this limit, yet experiencing similar mass loss rates, would have dissipated prior to impact. Such bodies would fail to leave an impact scar at Jupiter's atmosphere, as was realized by fragments F, J, P(sub 1), P(sub 2), T, and U.

Hahn, Joseph M.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Dynamics of the Trans-Neptune Region: Apsidal Waves in the Kuiper Belt

The role of apsidal density waves propagating in a primordial trans-Neptune disk (i.e., Kuiper belt) is investigated. It is shown that Neptune launches apsidal waves at its secular resonance near 40 AU that propagate radially outward, deeper into the particle disk. The wavelength of apsidal waves is considerably longer than waves that might be launched at Lindblad resonances, because the pattern speed, g(sub s), resulting from the apsis precession of Neptune is much slower than its mean motion, Omega(sub s). If the early Kuiper belt had a sufficient surface density, sigma, the disk's wave response to Neptune's secular perturbation would have spread the disturbing torque radially over a collective scale lambda(sub *) approx. = r(2(mu)(sub d)Omega/ absolute value of r dg/dr)(sup 1/2), where mu(sub d)equivalent pi(sigma)r(exp 2)/(1 solar mass) and Omega(r) and g(r) are respectively the mean motion and precession frequency of the disk particles. This results in considerably smaller eccentricities at resonance than had the disk particles been treated as noninteracting test particles. Consequently, particles are less apt to be excited into planet-crossing orbits, implying that the erosion timescales reported by earlier test-particle simulations of the Kuiper belt may be underestimated. It is also shown that the torque the disk exerts upon the planet (due to its gravitational attraction for the disk's spiral wave pattern) damps the planet's eccentricity and further inhibits the planet's ability to erode the disk. Key words: celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics - comets: general minor planets, asteroids

Ward, William R.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Neptune's Eccentricity and the Nature of the Kuiper Belt

The small eccentricity of Neptune may be a direct consequence of apsidal wave interaction with the trans-Neptune population of debris called the Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is subject to resonant perturbations from Neptune, so that the transport of angular momentum by density waves can result in orbital evolution of Neptune as well as changes in the structure of the Kuiper belt. In particular, for a belt eroded out to the vicinity of Neptune's 2:1 resonance at about 48 astronomical units, Neptune's eccentricity can damp to its current value over the age of the solar system if the belt contains slightly more than an earth mass of material out to about 75 astronomical units.

Ward, William R.↗

NASA NTRS1998

Tidal Disruption of Strengthless Rubble Piles: A Dimensional Analysis

A relatively simple prescription for estimating the number of debris clumps (n) that form after a catastrophic tidal disruption event is presented. Following the breakup event, it is assumed that the individual debris particles follow keplerian orbits about the planet until the debris' gravitational contraction timescale (t(sub c)) becomes shorter than its orbital spreading timescale (t(sub s)). When the two timescales become comparable, self-gravity breaks up the debris train into n = L/D clumps, which is the debris length/diameter ratio at that instant. The clumps subsequently orbit the planet independent of each other. The predicted number of clumps n is in good agreement with more sophisticated N-body treatments of tidal breakup for parabolic encounters, and the dependence of n upon the progenitor's density as well as its orbit is also mapped out for hyperbolic encounters. These findings may be used to further constrain both the orbits and densities of the tidally disrupted bodies that struck Callisto and Ganymede. A cursory analysis shows that the Gomul and Gipul crater chains on Callisto, which have the greatest number of craters among the known chains, were formed by projectiles having comet-like densities estimated at rho(sub o) < 1 gm/cc.

Hahn, Joseph M.↗

NASA NTRS1997

Dynamics of the Trans-Neptune Region: Apsidal Waves in the Kuiper Belt

Trans-Neptune↗

NASA NTRS1997

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9: An Active Comet

The important elements of the debate over the activity versus dormancy of comet Shoemaker Levy 9 (S-L 9) are reviewed. It is argued that the circularity of the isophotes in the inner comae of S-L 9 as well as the spatial dependencies of the comae brightness profiles are indicators of sustained dust production by S-L 9. It is also shown that the westward tail orientations, which were formerly interpreted as a sign of the comet's dormancy, are not a good indicator of either activity or dormancy. Rather, the tail orientations simply place constraints on the dust production rate for grains smaller than approx. equals 5(micron). All the available evidence points to S-L 9 as having been an active, dust-producing comet. Synthetic images of an active comet are fitted to Hubble Space Telescope images of the S-L 9 fragment K, and its grain size and outflow velocity distributions are extracted. These findings show that the appearance of the dust coma was dominated by large grains having radii between approx. equals 30 (micron) and approx. equals 3 mm, produced at a rate of M approx. equals 22 kg/ s, and ejected at outflow velocities of approx. equals 0.5 m/ s. Only upper limits on the production rates of smaller grains are obtained. The nucleus of fragment K was not observed directly but its size is restricted to lie within a rather narrow interval 0.4 less than or equal to Rf less than or equal to 1.2 km.

Rettig, Terrence W.↗

NASA NTRS1995

Disk tides and accretion runaway

It is suggested that tidal interaction of an accreting planetary embryo with the gaseous preplanetary disk may provide a mechanism to breach the so-called runaway limit during the formation of the giant planet cores. The disk tidal torque converts a would-be shepherding object into a 'predator,' which can continue to cannibalize the planetesimal disk. This is more likely to occur in the giant planet region than in the terrestrial zone, providing a natural cause for Jupiter to predate the inner planets and form within the O(10(exp 7) yr) lifetime of the nebula.

Ward, William R.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Damping of orbital inclinations by bending waves

An inclined secondary orbiting in a disk will launch bending waves from resonance sites where the Doppler shifted forcing frequency matches the disk's natural frequency for vertical oscillations. These vertical resonances are of two types: external resonances falling interior and exterior to the perturber's semimajor axis that excite its inclination and coorbiting resonances that fall at the perturber's orbit and damp its inclination. We show that torques from coorbiting resonances dominate the bending wave interaction for a constant density disk. In this case the inclination ultimately decay and an estimate of the characteristic time scale for this process is made.

Ward, William R.↗