C. M. Elder
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View article: Little to no active faulting likely at Europa’s seafloor today
Little to no active faulting likely at Europa’s seafloor today Open
Many of the outer Solar System's icy satellites feature known or suspected subsurface oceans, at least some of which are likely situated atop rocky interiors. Water-rock interactions at and beneath these seafloors might support active chem…
View article: Architectures and Instruments for Enceladus Exploration
Architectures and Instruments for Enceladus Exploration Open
Enceladus, a moon of Saturn with a subsurface ocean containing potential hydrothermal activity, is a crucial target for habitability and life detection missions. While the Cassini mission provided important information about Enceladus, man…
Boulders on Bennu: Low Apparent Thermal Inertia Caused by Thermal Fatigue Fractures Open
Boulders covering the surfaces of asteroids Bennu and Ryugu have apparent thermal inertias substantially lower than their meteorite analogs. This has led to the inference that boulders on Bennu may be unlike any known meteorite. However, s…
View article: Discovery of a Lunar Cold Spot at Apollo 16's South Ray Crater
Discovery of a Lunar Cold Spot at Apollo 16's South Ray Crater Open
Lunar cold spots are extensive, ray‐like regions of reduced nighttime temperature surrounding young impact craters. Using improved Diviner temperature maps, we identify a faint cold spot surrounding South Ray crater at the Apollo 16 landin…
View article: Leveraging Ceres to Gain Insights into the Candidate Ocean Worlds of Umbriel and Oberon That Orbit Uranus
Leveraging Ceres to Gain Insights into the Candidate Ocean Worlds of Umbriel and Oberon That Orbit Uranus Open
Ceres, located in the asteroid belt, exhibits intriguing parallels with two of the large Uranian satellites: Umbriel and Oberon. These similarities include size, bulk compositions, and dominantly radiogenic internal heat sources. We identi…
View article: Leveraging Ceres to Gain Insights into the Candidate Ocean Worlds of Umbriel and Oberon that Orbit Uranus
Leveraging Ceres to Gain Insights into the Candidate Ocean Worlds of Umbriel and Oberon that Orbit Uranus Open
Introduction: Ceres is the only inner Solar System dwarf planet (2.77 AU, 940-km-diameter). There are intriguing parallels between Ceres and two of the large Uranian satellites, located at 19.19 AU: Umbriel (1,169-km-diameter) and Oberon (…
Boulders on Bennu: Thermophysical Implications of Thermal Fatigue Generated Fractures Open
Infrared telescopic observations of Bennu led to the prediction that its surface would be covered in fine-grained (several mm – 1 cm) regolith (Emery et al., 2014). This prediction was based on an apparent thermal inertia which was substan…
View article: Potential Landing Sites: A Comprehensive Reconnaissance Assessment of the Europa Clipper Trajectory
Potential Landing Sites: A Comprehensive Reconnaissance Assessment of the Europa Clipper Trajectory Open
NASA’s Europa Clipper mission will explore Jupiter’s icy moon via multiple flybys in the early 2030s. The ocean world Europa is one of the most promising locations to search for life elsewhere in the solar system, and thus Europa Clipper’s…
View article: The Analyzer for Cusp Ions (ACI) on the TRACERS Mission
The Analyzer for Cusp Ions (ACI) on the TRACERS Mission Open
The Analyzers for Cusp Ions (ACIs) on the TRACERS mission measure ion velocity distribution functions in the magnetospheric cusp from two closely spaced spacecraft in low Earth orbit. The precipitating and upflowing ion measurements contri…
The Europa Imaging System (EIS) Investigation Open
The Europa Imaging System (EIS) consists of a Narrow-Angle Camera (NAC) and a Wide-Angle Camera (WAC) that are designed to work together to address high-priority science objectives regarding Europa's geology, composition, and the nature of…
View article: Thermophysical Diversity of Young Lunar Crater Ejecta Revealed with LRO Diviner Observations
Thermophysical Diversity of Young Lunar Crater Ejecta Revealed with LRO Diviner Observations Open
Young (1 m in diameter, (2) “clastic” ejecta with varying levels of vertical density stratification, and (3) “impact melts” with high thermal inertia materials buried under a layer of less dense material. These thermophysically derived cla…
View article: Extended Silicic Volcanism in the Gruithuisen Region—Revisiting the Composition and Thermophysical Properties of Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon
Extended Silicic Volcanism in the Gruithuisen Region—Revisiting the Composition and Thermophysical Properties of Gruithuisen Domes on the Moon Open
The formation mechanisms, extent, and compositions of red spots on the lunar surface have intrigued the lunar community for decades. By identifying a new dome and another silicic crater in the highlands nearby, we find that the silicic vol…
View article: Science Overview of the Europa Clipper Mission
Science Overview of the Europa Clipper Mission Open
The goal of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission is to assess the habitability of Jupiter’s moon Europa. After entering Jupiter orbit in 2030, the flight system will collect science data while flying past Europa 49 times at typical closest approa…
View article: Rocks with Extremely Low Thermal Inertia at the OSIRIS-REx Sample Site on Asteroid Bennu
Rocks with Extremely Low Thermal Inertia at the OSIRIS-REx Sample Site on Asteroid Bennu Open
The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security–Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission recently returned a sample of rocks and dust collected from asteroid Bennu. We analyzed the highest-resolution thermal data …
View article: The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties Inferred from Present-Day Surface Rock Abundance
The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties Inferred from Present-Day Surface Rock Abundance Open
The surface rock abundance map derived from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment (Diviner) revealed variability in the rock abundance across the surface of the lunar maria [1]. Rocks on the lunar surfa…
View article: Lunar Boulder Fields as Indicators of Recent Tectonic Activity
Lunar Boulder Fields as Indicators of Recent Tectonic Activity Open
Wrinkle ridges are the predominant tectonic structure on the nearside lunar maria. Although lunar wrinkle ridge formation began as early as ∼3.9–4.0 Ga, recent investigations have identified wrinkle ridges in the lunar maria that were tect…
View article: Planned Geological Investigations of the Europa Clipper Mission
Planned Geological Investigations of the Europa Clipper Mission Open
Geological investigations planned for the Europa Clipper mission will examine the formation, evolution, and expression of geomorphic structures found on the surface. Understanding geologic features, their formation, and any recent activity…
View article: Unraveling the Geologic History of Miranda’s Inverness Corona
Unraveling the Geologic History of Miranda’s Inverness Corona Open
Miranda is the only icy body whose surface is known to contain the enigmatic features called corona—ovoid to trapezoidal areas of deformation. In this work, we seek to constrain potential formation mechanisms for Inverness Corona, the youn…
View article: The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance
The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance Open
We use the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment surface rock abundance data set to investigate how rock content changes with surface age in the maria. We find that surface rock abundance decreases with unit age …
View article: Evidence for Fine-grained Material at Lunar Red Spots: Insights from Thermal Infrared and Radar Data Sets
Evidence for Fine-grained Material at Lunar Red Spots: Insights from Thermal Infrared and Radar Data Sets Open
Lunar red spots are small spectrally red features that have been proposed to be the result of non-mare volcanism. Studies have shown that a number of red spots are silicic, and are spectrally distinct from both highlands and mare compositi…
Thermal Environments and Volatile Stability Within Lunar Pits and Caves Open
Lunar collapse pits and possible caves have been suggested as ideal locations for the storage and protection of lunar water ice deposits, due to their potential to create permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) at high latitudes and ability to…
View article: Charged particle bombardment– a dominant surface modification process on the Uranian moons?
Charged particle bombardment– a dominant surface modification process on the Uranian moons? Open
The Uranus system hosts a diverse set of large moons, from the enigmatic Miranda with its striking coronae, to the outermost and second-largest moon Oberon with its dark and ancient surface. These moons mostly orbit within Uranus’ ma…
View article: Titania’s Messina Chasmata
Titania’s Messina Chasmata Open
Titania is the fourth major moon from Uranus and is the largest moon in the Uranian system. It has a diameter of ~1580 km, a density of ~1.7 g/cm3, and was imaged by Voyager 2 at a resolution of 2.9 km/pixel. Even with the low-resolution i…
View article: Thermophysical Properties of Lunar Irregular Mare Patches From LRO Diviner Radiometer Data
Thermophysical Properties of Lunar Irregular Mare Patches From LRO Diviner Radiometer Data Open
Irregular mare patches (IMPs) are enigmatic features in the lunar maria that are characterized as having smooth mounds surrounded by uneven or blocky terrain. The IMPs appear anomalously young compared to surrounding maria, with crater cou…
The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance Open
Derived data from Elder et al. (2022) The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance, submitted.
The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance Open
Derived data from Elder et al. (2022) The Variability of Lunar Mare Basalt Properties from Surface Rock Abundance, submitted.
View article: The Effects of Terrain Properties Upon the Small Crater Population Distribution at Giordano Bruno: Implications for Lunar Chronology
The Effects of Terrain Properties Upon the Small Crater Population Distribution at Giordano Bruno: Implications for Lunar Chronology Open
The distribution of impact craters on the ejecta of Giordano Bruno, a recent (<10 Ma) 22‐km diameter crater within the lunar highlands, exhibits substantial variations. We surveyed craters D ≥ 10 m across a 1,323 km 2 area of Giordano Brun…