Surface Processes in Icy Solar System Objects

AST 0506565 Baragiola Dr. Raul Baragiola将进行实验室研究，以回答有关外太阳系中冰冷卫星表面及其与高能辐射和大气物种相互作用的关键问题。这项实验研究的内在知识价值将是对这些环境中运行的基本物理化学过程的深入了解。此外，它还将提供物理-化学数据，这些数据对伽利略航天器和哈勃空间望远镜最近的观测所提出的约束模型和问题以及土星系统卡西尼使命所产生的问题有用。从过去几年的多项发现来看，很有可能会发现新的现象，这是目前的模型或理论所没有预料到的。拟议研究的更广泛影响是对理解彗星、环粒子、星际颗粒以及月球和水星极地冰的稳定性的直接影响。此外，这些研究还可应用于不同的领域，如地球上冰的遥感、地球高层大气中层冰的物理和化学、离子和光子对材料的处理、无定形材料的材料科学、生物组织中的辐射效应和外星生物学。该研究提供了极好的教育机会，由于其跨学科的特点和广泛的技术使用：离子和光子束，真空，低温，质谱和光谱从紫外到红外。***

AST 0506565BaragiolaDr. Raul Baragiola will perform laboratory research to answer key questions about the surfaces oficy satellites in the outer solar system and about their interaction with energetic radiation and atmospheric species. The intrinsic intellectual value of this experimental research will be achieving insight about fundamental physical-chemistry processes operating in those environments. In addition it will provide physical-chemistry data useful to constraint models and questions posed by recent observations by the Galileo spacecraft and the Hubble Space Telescope and those arising in the CASSINI mission to the Saturnian system. Judged from the multiple findings in the last years, there is a clear likelihood that new phenomena will be uncovered, which is not expected from current models or theories.The broader impacts of the proposed research are the direct implications for understanding comets, ring particles, interstellar grains, and the stability of polar ice on the Moon and Mercury. Furthermore, the studies have applications in diverse areas, such as the remote sensing of ices on Earth, the physics and chemistry of mesospheric ice in the Earth's upper atmosphere, processing of materials by ion and photons, materials science of amorphous materials, radiation effects in biological tissue and exobiology. The research offers excellent education opportunities, resulting from its interdisciplinary character and the use of a wide array of techniques: ion and photonbeams, ultrahigh vacuum, cryogenics, mass spectrometry, and optical spectroscopy from theultraviolet to the infrared. ***