G. Stangl

Geophysical and Atmospheric Evolution of Habitable Planets

The evolution of Earth-like habitable planets is a complex process that depends on the geodynamical and geophysical environments. In particular, it is necessary that plate tectonics remain active over billions of years. These geophysically active environments are strongly coupled to a planets host star parameters, such as mass, luminosity and activity, orbit location of the habitable zone, and the planets initial water inventory. Depending on the host stars radiation and particle flux evolution, the composition in the thermosphere, and the availability of an active magnetic dynamo, the atmospheres of Earth-like planets within their habitable zones are differently affected due to thermal and nonthermal escape processes. For some planets, strong atmospheric escape could even effect the stability of the atmosphere.

Comparison and Combination of Different GPS-Reiceiver Types at a Distance of 50 km

The concept of receiver calibration has been widely used for comparing the relative positions of respective “antenna phase centers” with a terrestrial “ground-truth”. Assuming that the results in this small calibration-network can be transferred to the actually observed, considerably larger network, conclusions can be drawn as to possible onsite-corrections like e.g. phase-center heights.