Titan, the largest moon on Saturn, is the only moon in the Solar System to have a substantial atmosphere. It is also the only body besides Earth to have a liquid stable at its surface. For Titan, this liquid is composed of hydrocarbons, mainly methane, forming lakes and seas at the surface. The knowledge we have on Titan is based on observations from Earth, and from space missions, especially...
In the coming years, space probes will be sent to the surface of ocean worlds of the solar system such as Titan, Europa and Enceladus to characterize their habitability and search for traces of life. In particular, the Dragonfly mission which was confirmed in June 2019 is expected to launch in 2028 and to land on Titan in 2034.
My thesis is intended to contribute to three main objectives in...
The QUIJOTE MFI instrument (2012-2018) observed the sky at four frequency bands, namely 11, 13, 17 and 19Ghz, at 1 degree angular resolution. We can use the full database of MFI observations to characterize the correlation properties of the atmospheric signal in those frequency bands. This information will be useful to improve the current sky models at these frequencies, and could be used in...
Since their discovery about 30 years ago, observations of Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) have been limited. These small icy bodies orbiting beyond Neptune were observed in the 0.5 to 2.5 µm range, where only bands of water and methanol ice could be detected and identified on non-dwarf planets (diameter < 800 km). In autumn 2022, a large JWST program began observing 54 TNOs, in the 0.7 to 5.1...
Since gas has recently been discovered in debris disks, the current model of planetary accretion and
evolution doesn't take this gas into account.
However, planets have already been discovered in debris disks with significant amounts of gas (e.g.
Beta pic), and models predict that this gas can be regenerated by collisions for 100 Myr, 10 times
more than in protoplanetary disks.
Because of...
During this talk, I will be discussing our findings on the mass-metallicity relation (MZ) in low-mass galaxies. Our sample consists of eight galaxies at a redshift of 7, which we identified in the JWST/NIRSpec data of the lensing cluster Abell 2744 as part of the JWST Cycle 1 program, UNCOVER. By combining ultra-deep NIRSpec observations with the strong gravitational lensing boost of Abell...