SEARCH · Engineering Papers
Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
This viewgraph presentation describes the scientific challenges along with the chemical and dynamic processes that govern tropospheric ozone. The contents include: 1) The challenge and why; 2) The how to do 'it'; 3) Did 'it' work; 4) What we are trying to do with 'it'; 5) What else is happening; and 6) What next.
The proposed Xenia mission will, for the first time, chart the chemical and dynamical state of the majority of baryonic matter in the universe. using high-resolution spectroscopy, Xenia will collect essential information from major traces of the formation and evolution of structures from the early universe to the present time. The mission is based on innovative instrumental and observational approaches: observing with fast reaction gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) with a high spectral resolution. This enables the study of their (star-forming) environment from the dark to the local universe and the use of GRBs as backlight of large-scale cosmological structures, observing and surveying extended sources with high sensitivity using two wide field-of-view x-ray telescopes - one with a high angular resolution and the other with a high spectral resolution.
Introduction: Relict "dusty" olivine is considered to be a remnants of previous chondrule forming events based on petrographic and chemical evidence. Dynamic crystallization experiments confirm that dusty olivine can be produced by reduction of FeO-rich olivine in Unequilibrated Ordinary Chondrite (UOC) material. The results of these experiments compliment those of who also produced dusty olivine, but from synthetic starting materials. Techniques: Dynamic crystallization experiments were conducted in which UOC material was reduced in presence of graphite. Starting material was coarsely ground GR095554 or WSG95300 that contained olivine of Fo 65-98. Approximately 75 mg. of UOC material was placed in a graphite crucible and sealed in an evacuated silica tube. The tube was suspended in a gas-mixing furnace operated at 1 log unit below the IW buffer. The experiments were as brief as 1.5 hrs up to 121 hrs. Results: Dusty olivine was produced readily in experiments melted at 1400 C for I hr. and cooled between 5 and 100 C/hr or melted at 1300-1400 C for 24 hours. Fe-rich olivine (dusty olivine precursors) that have been partially reduced were common in the experiments melted at 1400 C and cooled at 1000 C/hr or melted at 1200 C for 24 hrs. Relict olivine is absent in experiments melted at 1400 for 24 hrs, melted above 1400 C, or cooled more slowly than 10 C/hr. Relict olivine in the experiments has minimum Fo value of 83 . Thus even in the shortest experiments the most Fe-rich olivine has been altered significantly. The precursor olivine disappears in a few to many hours depending on temperature. The experiments show Fe-rich olivine in all stages of transition to the new dusty form. The olivine is reduced to form dusty olivine in a matter of a few hours at temperatures less than 1400 C and in minutes at higher temperatures. The reduction appears to proceed from the rim of the crystal inward with time. The reduction appears initially rectilinear as if controlled by crystallography, but with time Fe-metal blebs are randomly distributed throughout the olivine. In a given experiment, dusty olivine can be found in varying stages of development, but in the longest experiments, the Fe-metal blebs are dominant and they appear to be migrating out of the olivine. The composition of the dusty olivine ranges from Fo 94-99. The Cr, Mn, and Ca content of the newly formed, dusty olivine is slightly less on average that the precursor olivine, but is till with the range of type 1 olivine. Chadacrysts in the low Ca pyroxene are most common in the higher temperature, more slowly cooled experiments and range in composition from Fo 90-99. Application to chondrule formation: These experiments place time-temperature limits on the preservation of Fe-rich olivine and the production of dusty olivine during chondrule forming events. The reduction process proceeds in a few hours at temperatures above 1400 C and in 10's of hours at temperature between 1200 and 1300 C. This result further confirms th at chondrules form in a few hours to days as suggested earlier. The experiments also confirm that dusty olivine can form from typical Fe-rich olivine in UOC material during the recycling of such olivine in the chondrule forming process.
Ozone soundings are used to integrate models, satellite, aircraft and ground-based measurements for better interpretation of ozone variability, including atmospheric losses (predominantly in the stratosphere) and pollution (troposphere). A well-designed network of ozonesonde stations gives information with high vertical and horizontal resolution on a number of dynamical and chemical processes, allowing us to answer questions not possible with aircraft campaigns or current satellite technology. Strategic ozonesonde networks are discussed for high, mid- and low latitude studies. The Match sounding network was designed specifically to follow ozone depletion within the polar vortex; the standard sites are at middle to high northern hemisphere latitudes and typically operate from December through mid-March. Three mid-latitude strategic networks (the IONS series) operated over North America in July-August 2004, March-May and August 2006, and April and June-July-2008. These were designed to address questions about tropospheric ozone budgets and sources, including stratosphere-troposphere transport, and to validate satellite instruments and models. A global network focusing on processes in the equatorial zone, SHADOZ (Southern Hemisphere Additional Ozonesondes), has operated since 1998 in partnership with NOAA, NASA and the Meteorological Services of host countries. Examples of important findings from these networks are described,
In August 2009 Titan passed through northern spring equinox, and the southern hemisphere passed into fall. Since then, the moon's atmosphere has been closely watched for evidence of the expected seasonal reversal of stratospheric circulation, with increased northern insolation leading to upwelling, and consequent downwelling at southern high latitudes. If the southern winter mirrors the northern winter, this circulation will be traced by increases in short-lived gas species advected downwards from the upper atmosphere to the stratosphere. The Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn carries on board the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS), which has been actively monitoring the trace gas populations through measurement of the intensity of their infrared emission bands (7-1000 micron). In this presentation we will show fresh evidence from recent CIRS measurements in June 2012, that the shortest-lived and least abundant minor species (C3H4, C4H2, C6H6, HC3N) are indeed increasing dramatically southwards of 50S in the lower stratosphere. Intriguingly, the more stable gases (C2H2, HCN, CO2) have yet to show this trend, and continue to exhibit their 'summer' abundances, decreasing towards the south pole. Possible chemical and dynamical explanations of these results will be discussed , along with the potential of future CIRS measurements to monitor and elucidate these seasonal changes.
Extremely massive stars (50M and above) are exceedingly rare in the local Universe but are believed to have composed the entire first generation of stars, which lived fast, died young and left behind the first generation of black holes and set the stage for the formation of lower mass stars suitable to support life. There are significant uncertainties about how this happened (and how it still happens), mostly due to our poor knowledge of how stars change mass as they evolve. Extremely massive stars give mass back to the ISM via strong radiatively-driven winds and sometimes through sporadic eruptions of the most massive and brightest stars. Such mass loss plays an important role in the chemical and dynamical evolution of the local interstellar medium prior to the supernova explosion. Below we discuss how high energy thermal (and, in some cases, non-thermal) emission, along with modern simulations in 2 and 3 dimensions, can be used to help determine a physically realistic picture of mass loss in a well-studied, mysterious system.
A fundamental goal of solar system exploration is to understand the origin of the solar system, the initial stages, conditions, and processes by which the solar system formed, how the formation process was initiated, and the nature of the interstellar seed material from which the solar system was born. Key to understanding solar system formation and subsequent dynamical and chemical evolution is the origin and evolution of the giant planets and their atmospheres.
Surveys by ground based telescopes, HST, and Spitzer have revealed that brown dwarfs of most spectral classes exhibit variability. The spectral and temporal signatures of the variability are complex and apparently defy simplistic classification which complicates efforts to model the changes. Important questions include understanding if clearings are forming in an otherwise uniform cloud deck or if thermal perturbations, perhaps associated with breaking gravity waves, are responsible. If clouds are responsible how long does it take for the atmospheric thermal profile to relax from a hot cloudy to a cooler cloudless state? If thermal perturbations are responsible then what atmospheric layers are varying? How do the observed variability timescales compare to atmospheric radiative, chemical, and dynamical timescales? I will address such questions by presenting modeling results for time-varying partly cloudy atmospheres and explore the importance of various atmospheric processes over the relevant timescales for brown dwarfs of a range of effective temperatures. Regardless of the origin of the observed variability, the complexity seen in the atmospheres of the field dwarfs hints at the variability that we may encounter in the next few years in directly imaged young Jupiters. Thus understanding the nature of variability in the field dwarfs, including sensitivity to gravity and metallicity, is of particular importance for exoplanet characterization.
The recently discovered brown dwarf WISE 0855 presents our first opportunity to study an object outside the Solar System that is nearly as cold as our own gas giant planets. However the traditional methodology for characterizing brown dwarfs-near infrared spectroscopy-is not currently feasible as WISE 0855 is too cold and faint. To characterize this frozen extrasolar world we obtained a 4.5-5.2 micrometers spectrum, the same bandpass long used to study Jupiter's deep thermal emission. Our spectrum reveals the presence of atmospheric water vapor and clouds, with an absorption profile that is strikingly similar to Jupiter. The spectrum is high enough quality to allow the investigation of dynamical and chemical processes that have long been studied in Jupiter's atmosphere, but this time on an extrasolar world.
Laminar ozone structure is a ubiquitous feature of tropospheric-ozone distributions resulting from dynamic and chemical atmospheric processes. Understanding the characteristics of these ozone laminae and the mechanisms responsible for producing them is important to outline the transport pathways of trace gases and to quantify the impact of different sources on tropospheric background ozone. In this study, we present a new method to detect ozone laminae to understand their climatological characteristics of occurrence frequency in terms of thickness and altitude. We employ both ground-based and airborne ozone lidar measurements and other synergistic observations and modeling to investigate the sources and mechanisms such as biomass burning transport, stratospheric intrusion, lightning-generated NOx, and nocturnal low-level jets that are responsible for depleted or enhanced tropospheric ozone layers. Spaceborne (e.g., OMI (Ozone Monitoring Instrument), TROPOMI (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument), TEMPO (Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution)) measurements of these laminae will observe greater horizontal extent and lower vertical resolution than balloon-borne or lidar measurements will quantify. Using integrated ground-based, airborne, and spaceborne observations in a modeling framework affords insight into how to gain knowledge of both the vertical and horizontal evolution of these ubiquitous ozone laminae.
The meteoric metal layers (Na, Fe, and K) which form as a result of the ablation of incoming meteors act as unique tracers for chemical and dynamical processes that occur within the upper mesosphere lower thermosphere region. In this work, we examine whether these metal layers are sensitive Fe indicators of decadal long-term changes within the upper atmosphere. Output from a whole-atmosphere climate model is used to assess the response of the Na, K, and Fe layers across a 50 year period (1955-2005). At short timescales, the K layer has previously been shown to exhibit a very different seasonal behavior compared to the other metals. Here we show that this unusual behavior is also exhibited at longer time scales (both the 11 year solar cycle and 50 year periods), where K displays a much more pronounced response to atmospheric temperature changes than either Na or Fe. The contrasting solar cycle behavior of the K and Na layers predicted by the model is confirmed using satellite and lidar observations for the period 2004-2013.
An algorithm capable of incorporating multi-step reaction mechanisms into atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using traditional fixed valence force fields is proposed and implemented within the framework of LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator). This extension, referred to as fix bond/react, enables bonding topology modifications during a running MD simulation using pre- and post-reaction bonding templates to carry out a pre-specified reaction. Candidate reactants are first identified by interatomic separation, followed by the application of a generalized topology matching algorithm to confirm they match the pre-reaction template. This is followed by a topology conversion to match the post-reaction template and a dynamic relaxation to minimize high energy configurations. Two case studies, the condensation polymerization of nylon 6,6 and the formation of a highly-crosslinked epoxy, are simulated to demonstrate the robustness, stability, and speed of the algorithm. Improvements which could increase its utility are discussed.
Comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS) has a peculiar volatile composition, with CO being the dominant volatile, as opposed to H2O, and one of the largest N2/CO ratios ever observed in a comet. Using observations obtained with the Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility, the 3.5 m Astrophysical Research Consortium telescope at Apache Point Observatory, the Discovery Channel Telescope at Lowell Observatory, and the Arizona Radio Observatory 10 m Submillimeter Telescope, we quantified the abundances of 12 different species in the coma of R2 PanSTARRS: CO, CO2, H2O, CH4, C2H6, HCN, CH3OH, H2CO, OCS, C2H2, NH3, and N2. We confirm the high abundances of CO and N2 and heavy depletions of H2O, HCN, CH3OH, and H2CO compared to CO reported by previous studies. We provide the first measurements (or most sensitive measurements/constraints) on H2O, CO2, CH4, C2H6, OCS, C2H2, and NH3, all of which are depleted relative to CO by at least 1–2 orders of magnitude compared to values commonly observed in comets. The observed species also show strong enhancements relative to H2O, and, even when compared to other species like CH4 or CH3OH, most species show deviations from typical comets by at least a factor of 2–3. The only mixing ratios found to be close to typical are CH3OH/CO2 and CH3OH/CH4. The CO2/CO ratio is within a factor of 2 of those observed for C/1995 O1 (Hale- Bopp) and C/2006 W3 (Christensen) at a similar heliocentric distance, though it is at least an order of magnitude lower than many other comets observed with AKARI. While R2 PanSTARRS was located at a heliocentric distance of 2.8 au at the time of our observations in 2018 January/February, we argue, using sublimation models and comparison to other comets observed at similar heliocentric distance, that this alone cannot account for the peculiar observed composition of this comet and therefore must reflect its intrinsic composition. We discuss possible implications for this clear outlier in compositional studies of comets obtained to date and encourage future dynamical and chemical modeling in order to better understand what the composition of R2 PanSTARRS tells us about the early solar system.
The NASA GEOS Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) system provides 3-dimensional atmospheric composition analyses and forecasts to the public in near-real time at the high spatial resolution of 25 km. While the main focus of this new product is on tropospheric air quality information, the GEOS-Chem chemistry model (v12) used in this system includes the UCX stratospheric chemistry mechanism. Here, we describe the GEOS-CF system and provide comparisons against remote-sensed observations for stratospheric composition, including measurements of HCl, ClO, NO2, and O3. The GEOS-CF nudges the stratospheric ozone towards the GEOS Forward Processing (GEOS FP) assimilated ozone product; as a result the stratospheric ozone analysis in theGEOS-CF agrees well with observations. Additionally, with the inclusion of the GEOS-Chem UCX stratospheric chemistry mechanism in GEOS-CF, 5-day forecasts, especially during the abnormal 2020 NH polar spring, capture the chemical and dynamical changes missed by the GEOS FP system, which tends towards climatology. The GEOS-CF is a new tool for the research community providing near-real time 3-dimensional gridded information on atmospheric composition throughout the troposphere and stratosphere.
The Venus Environmental Satellite (VESAT) is being developed by JPL, Ball Aerospace, the University of Wisconsin, and Oxford University as an inexpensive but effective means of assessing numerous and interrelated dynamical and chemical processes within the deep atmosphere of Venus. Utilizing a small array of remote-sensing instruments designed to take advantage of several unique characteristics of this alien environment, VESAT daily acquires quantitative three-dimensional global maps of Venus in key environmental field parameters such as windfields, atmosphere/surface temperature fields, and trace gas abundances. VESAT utilizes a 45-degree inclined, 30,000-km altitude circular orbit to achieve consistent, regular coverage of the entire globe with minimal day-to-day variations in spacecraft operations, allowing uplink/downlink operations to be conducted effectively and inexpensively in a university setting. An integrated hardware procurement approach, wherein a single contractor is responsible for the design, manufacture, and integration of the entire spacecraft, including the instrument payload, enables significant savings in spacecraft/payload cost and schedule.
Water vapor plays an essential role in atomospheric processes through its radiative, chemical, and dynamical properties.
The NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Composition Forecast (GEOS-29CF) provides recent estimates and five-day forecasts of atmospheric composition to the public in near-real time. To do this, the GEOS Earth system model is coupled with the GEOS-Chem tropospheric-stratospheric unified chemistry extension (UCX) to represent composition from the surface to the top of the GEOS atmosphere (0.01 hPa). The GEOS-CF system is described, including updates made to the GEOS-Chem UCX mechanism within GEOS-CF for improved representation of stratospheric chemistry. Comparisons are made against balloon, lidar and satellite observations for stratospheric composition, including measurements of ozone (O3) and important nitrogen and chlorine species related to stratospheric O3recovery. The GEOS-CF nudges the stratospheric O3towards the GEOS Forward Processing (GEOS FP) assimilated O3product; as a result the stratospheric O3in the GEOS-CF historical estimate agrees well with observations. During abnormal dynamical and chemical environments such as the 2020 polar vortexes, the GEOS-CF O3forecasts are more realistic than GEOS FP O3forecasts because of the inclusion of the complex GEOS-Chem UCX stratospheric chemistry. Overall, the spatial patterns of the GEOS-CF simulated concentrations of stratospheric composition agree well with satellite observations. However, there are notable biases – such as low NOx and HNO3 in the polar regions and generally low HCl throughout the stratosphere – and future improvements to the chemistry mechanism and emissions are discussed. GEOS-CF is a new tool for the research community and instrument teams observing trace gases in the stratosphere and troposphere, providing near-real-time three-dimensional gridded information on atmospheric composition.
We developed a set of solar zenith angle, latitude- and altitude-dependent scaling factors to account for the diurnal variability in ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) when comparing Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE) III/ISS observations to observations from other times of day. The scaling factors are calculated as a function of solar zenith angle from the four-dimensional output of a global atmospheric chemistry model simulation of 2017–2020 that shows good agreement with observed vertical profiles. Using a global atmospheric chemistry model allows us to account for both chemically and dynamically driven variability. Both year-specific scale factors and a multi-year monthly climatology are available to decrease the uncertainty in inter-instrument comparisons and allow consistent comparisons between observations from different times of day. We describe the variability in the diurnal scale factors as a function of space and time. The quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) appears to be a contributing factor to interannual variability in the NO2 scaling factors, leading to differences between years that switch sign with altitude. We show that application of these scaling factors improves the comparison between SAGE III/ISS and OSIRIS NO2 and between SAGE III/ISS and OMPS LP, OSIRIS, and ACE-FTS O3 observations. The comparisons between SAGE III/ISS O3 for sunrise or sunset vs. Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) daytime or nighttime observations are also more consistent when we apply the diurnal scaling factors. There is good agreement between SAGE III/ISS V5.2 ozone and correlative measurements, with differences within 5 % between 20 and 50 km when corrected for diurnal variability. Similarly, the SAGE III/ISS V5.2 NO2 agreement with correlative measurement is mostly within 10 %. While the scale factors were designed for use with SAGE III/ISS observations, they can easily be applied to other observation intercomparisons as well.