Published in The Astrophysical Journal
Determining which small exoplanets have stony-iron compositions is necessary for quantifying the occurrence of such planets and for understanding the physics of planet formation. Kepler-10 hosts the stony-iron world Kepler-10b, and also contains what has been reported to be the largest solid silicate-ice planet, Kepler-10c. Using 220 radial velocit...
Published in Icarus
Leading up to the 2015 IAU General Assembly, the International Astronomical Union s Working List of Meteor Showers included 486 unconfirmed showers, showers that are not certain to exist. If confirmed, each shower would provide a record of past comet or asteroid activity. Now, we report that 41 of these are detected in the Cameras for Allsky Meteor...
Published in Icarus
The Cameras for Allsky Meteor Surveillance (CAMS) video-based meteoroid orbit survey adds 60 newly identified showers to the IAU Working List of Meteor Showers (numbers 427, 445–446, 506–507, and part of 643–750). 28 of these are also detected in the independent SonotaCo survey. In total, 230 meteor showers and shower components are identified in C...
Published in Icarus
Ammonium-bearing minerals have been suggested to be present on Mars, Ceres, and various asteroids and comets. We undertook a systematic study of the spectral reflectance properties of ammonium-bearing minerals and compounds that have possible planetary relevance (ie, ammonium carbonates, chlorides, nitrates, oxalates, phosphates, silicates, and sul...
Published in Icarus
We estimate an average dune migration of 0.8 m and a minimum ripple migration of 1.1 m in a time span of 3.7 Earth-years. These dunes and ripples are mainly shaped by prevailing winds coming from the north, however we also report the presence of secondary winds which elongate the barchans horns. Such a complex wind scenario is likely caused by the...
Published in arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.03204
We present a new automated method to identify instrumental features masquerading as small, long period planets in thecandidate catalog. These systematics, mistakenly identified as planet transits, can have a strong impact on occurrence rate calculations because they cluster in a region of parameter space where Kepler s sensitivity to planets is poo...
Published in Astrobiology
The evolution of habitable conditions on Mars is often tied to the existence of aquatic habitats and largely constrained to the first billion years of the planet. Here, we propose an alternate, lasting evolutionary trajectory that assumes the colonization of land habitats before the end of the Hesperian period (ca. 3 billion years ago) at a pace si...
Published in Genome announcements
Janthinobacterium sp. Ant5-2-1, isolated from the Schirmacher Oasis of East Antarctica, produces a purple-violet pigment, manifests diverse energy metabolism abilities, and tolerates cold, ultraviolet radiation, and other environmental stressors. We report here the 6.19-Mb draft genome of strain Ant5-2-1, which will help understand its survival mec...
Published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable a wealth of new scientific investigations in the near-and mid-infrared, with sensitivity and spatial/spectral resolution greatly surpassing its predecessors. In this paper, we focus upon Solar System science facilitated by JWST, discussing the most current information available concerning JWST instr...
