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    The night side of Venus shows luminescence produced as atoms of nitrogen and oxygen combine. They are produced by UV sunlight and are carried to the nightside by strong winds in the high atmosphere. (LASP UV image from Pioneer 12)    		  

    Marvelous Planets,
    Mythology to Science

        For millenia the planets were woven into mythology. In recent centuries scientific study using telescopes, spectroscopes, and spacecraft has brought us to our present view of planets as neighboring worlds, as different and as similar as members of a family. They offer insights into our home planet Earth and even into the origin of life. Their marvels inspire us, even as we profit from their study.

    Accomplishment and Investigation

        Since 1965 LASP has sent instruments on eight spacecraft to Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. LASP scientists made the first reliable topographic map of Mars; found evidence of active vulcanism on Venus; studied very bright aurora on Jupiter and worked to understand its
        

    A frame from a movie of Io's plasma torus. (LASP EUV image from Cassini)
     
    magnetosphere; measured in unprecedented detail the fine structure of Saturn's rings; and even imaged Halley's comet from orbit around Venus. The result has been a better understanding of planetary processes. For example, theoretical work on Saturn's rings spilled over into the related area of planetary formation, especially important as more extra-solar planets are discovered. Other LASP research programs focus on Martian climate, geology, and geochemistry; on the role of electrically-charged dust in the evolving solar system; on low-velocity impacts in microgravity; and on the geology of the satellites of the giant planets.

       LASP now has two active planetary insruments in space, on the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft. Data from Galileo show the Io plasma torus - a ring of ions and electrons near Io's orbit - responding to the injection of gases into near-Io space by Io's volcanos. When Cassini flew past Jupiter in 2001-02, LASP scientists made a movie of this torus rotating and wobbling around Jupiter; used acetylene to trace wind systems in Jupiter's atmosphere; and found that Jupiter's enormously powerful aurora flicker like Earth's.

    Galileo (Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech)    		 
    Cassini (Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL/Caltech)    		  

    Exploratory Visions

        Galileo will return data until it enters Jupiter's atmosphere in 2003. Cassini has not yet begun its main mission - LASP's Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (UVIS) team is now working on detailed plans to examine Saturn's rings, atmosphere, magnetosphere, and moons as Cassini orbits the planet for four years beginning in 2003.
       Other missions are being planned. A LASP instrument will orbit Mercury on the Messenger spacecraft. LASP is working on opportunities to fly instruments, or entire missions, to Mars, Venus, or the outer planets. Theoretical work will continue on how planets formed, how our own planets and their atmospheres have evolved, and to understand the behavior of their atmospheres and magnetospheres.

    A Complex Giant

        The Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to study Saturn through a telescope, but decades passed before his Dutch successor Christiaan Huygens realized that is is surrounded by rings. Now, thanks to Voyager's measurements and much theoretical work, we know the rings are transient phenomena. Small moons are destroyed by impacts, producing a myriad of rock and ice particles. These first spread into rings and then are dragged down to a fiery end in Saturn's atmosphere.

         

     
       Titan, the largest of Saturn's dozens of moons, is most unusual: its nitrogen atmosphere is denser than Earth's. At its frigid temperatures, hydrocarbons from its ubiquitous smog may rain out and form lakes or seas of ethane or propane. Saturn's atmosphere, like Jupiter's, is mostly hydrogen with traces of methane, hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide, supplied by a persistent drizzle of small comets. As on Jupiter, heat from an internal source drives massive wind and storm systems made visible by the colored layers of clouds.

       The spacecraft Cassini is travelling to this complex giant carrying the European-built probe Huygens, which will enter orbit around Saturn, and LASP's UVIS team members and hundreds of Cassini colleagues worldwide will participate in four years' study of Saturn and its system.

    The Astrobiology Initiative

        LASP is home to the CU Center for Astrobiology, part of NASA's Astrobiology Institute. Scientists from many disciplines across campus work together to understand the origin and evolution of life on Earth, the habitability and potential for life elsewhere in our solar system, and the distribution of Earth-like planets and the potential for life beyond it. Faculty partcipate from fields of geology, astrophysics, planetary science, atmospheric science, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, and philosophy.

    Planetary Research Topics

     The following areas of study are included in LASP's planetary sciences research program.

    • Planetary surfaces
    • Atmospheres and exospheres
    • Magnetospheres
    • Planetary rings
    • Dusty plasmas (multi-component plasmas with macroscopic charge carriers)
    • Solar system origins (study of extrasolar planets and protoplanetary disks)
    • Evolution of planetary surfaces
    • Comets
    • Astrobiology (including the properties of habitable planets and the search for life elsewhere)

    Related LASP Projects:

 
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Planetary Science
Atmospheric Sciences
Solar / Terrestrial Physics
Space Physics
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